Well, this is it. What a long, strange trip this has been. After yesterday, today is all cake. No pressure, we have all day. So keep yer’ pants on.
Bud from the Lower Similkameen was our driver today, and he brought his family along too. This is at about 6500′, and we’ve been driving uphill for about an hour and a half at this point.
Whattya think Dre? Is this epic enough?
As always, there’s a bit of a hike a bike to get into the alpine. This one is tough, I won’t lie.
Seems to be worth it, though.
There was a lot of this sort of activity today. Any chance we got, there was some serious lounging in the grass to be done.
OK, so this being only the second time up to this area, we are not totally dialled on the route. I opted for a slightly different option this time, and we went over a col at around 7500′ to access Joe Lake. When I went over the route later, I’m pretty sure I found a different way to go that involves less climbing, but then again, it would skip this awesome approach.
Swimming at 7 grand in Canada. It’s not a common thing.
Scenic.
More scenic.
Stupidly scenic.
There were lots of punchy climbs for the first part of the day, but they always seemed to end with these long swooping swathes of singletrack in the alpine. Here’s what I mean…
Then when the descent finally gets going, it really gets going. Here’s an insane section, with speeds up to around 40mph in grass.
There’s more grassland to come, too. Unlike 2 years ago, the entire trail was in very good shape this time around. Last time this was savagely rough.
I love that you can see for miles in this image, and not a single road is to be seen.
Schley on the South Slope. Richie was a machine today, even outclimbing Dre at times. I still gotta give Dre the edge, though, as he pounded 5 beers on the way up.
Simon in the same place, always solid, always stylin’.
There was a ton more trail after this, and it got really dusty. You can see in the map here how massive this ride is. There’s close to 8000′ of descending, and it’s inaccessible by any motorized vehicles. Full on singletrack, from one end to the other.
A truly epic one. Way more vert than last time, and still just as hurtin’.
Total Distance = 88.5 mi, or 142 km.
Total Climbing = 10 357′ or 3 121m
Total Descending = 37 769′ or 11 457m
That’s 20km further and almost 10k’ higher than last time.
Big thanks to everyone who came out, and especially to:
Sounds like we’re doing another soon. Alberta, anyone?
