Hikes and Bikes

Ape Canyon

In my Portland post below I forgot to mention Ape Canyon, on the side of Mt St Helens.  It's an excellent ride - singletrack that's super-fun each way climbs a good bit (maybe 1500 feet) to the Plains of Abraham, a huge field of pumice with boulders strewn about.  It's pretty bizarre.  I also saw something I've never seen before - on the way out a streambed was dry, on the way back it was running 6 inches deep and 3 feet across.  I guess that's what they mean about it being a live volcano. 

Washington and Oregon pics

Washington and Oregon pics are up on Flickr.  They aren't labelled or ordered yet, and probably won't be for at least a few days.  Most are from either Crater Lake or Mt St Helens, others are from other spots in the Cascades and such.  I've spent varying amounts of time around Baker, Hood, Ranier, Shasta, and St Helens, which has been fun. 

I've wanted to see Crater Lake as long as I've known about it, and it was incredible.  The only downside is that it's a relatively small area, so it's better as a detour than a destination.  But it's one of the most stunning things I've seen this trip.

I didn't take many pics in Canada.  It rained so much in Whistler that I just got out of the habit of carrying the camera.  I'll sort the few I have and get some from a buddy at some point.

Portland, Bend riding

I spent a day at Phil's Area, in Bend, OR.  Phil's is right outside town and is the primary trail system for quick lunch-time or after work rides in Bend.  The trails are flat and buff with good flow but little interesting.  I imagine racing them on a hardtail would be fun, but coming from downhill terrain I was pretty bored.

I rode the Larch Mountain trail NE of Portland a couple times and had a blast.  It has great flow and fun obstacles but nothing scary.  The area is a bit of a maze; we started climbing to a peak.  The top couple hundred yards are covered in babyheads a couple layers deep, but below that the trail is in great shape.  It switchbacks down quite a ways to Cold Creek, then runs beside the creek for a while.  I imagine that there are a bunch of other trails in the area, but avoided them for fear of getting lost.

We also spent a day at the Mt Hood Ski Bowl.  There's one really good 4 mile XC trail there (Optimator?), but otherwise it's not worth the drive, and certainly not worth the lift ticket.  Their double-black trail is just a lift access road with some off-camber loose rock - not easy, but also not fun.  The lower switchbacks trail doesn't flow quite right, while I enjoyed the lower technical trail my friends did not.  I think part of the difference was that my bike is built up a bit heavier than theirs are, so I had better traction and control.  There was lots of fall-line deep dust, so they drifted around quite a bit.

BC trail review

To calibrate how burly the trails are up here, I got my brakes bled on July  6 and dropped the bike off today for another bleed. 

Whistler and Nelson are largely similar.  All the trails were just brutally hard, and I imagine it's largely a consequence of the climate.  It's borderline rainforest there, so the ground is really soft and rooty.  You couldn't put in a buff trail if you tried - it would rapidly get eroded down to the roots.  So, people get big bikes.  That's a positive feedback loop as those bikes damage trails more than cross-country bikes.  It's a downhillers wet dream, but I ended up frustrated and sore.

Fernie was great.  It's a tiny town with about as many trails as Park City.  The trails are challenging cross country rides - good amounts of uphill singletrack, tough and fun downhills.  I'd especially reccomend Eric's Trail and Oh Dear to any UT-expert level riders.  Both are classic singletrack, Eric's only has a few especially steep spots, but I spent most of Oh Dear behind the saddle.  There's also a ski resort (that I didn't ride) and a ton of trails near the resort.  I only rode a couple of those - Dem Bones is a great ride down and would probably be a fun climb.  It's just buff singletrack winding down a wide ridgeline.

I camped with some Golden locals in Whistler.  One of them (a Maxxis rider) told me that I had to ride Kicking Horse, their new ski resort.  Kicking Horse has a 4000 foot vertical, a steep top, a grizzly refuge underneath the gondola, and is brand spanking new.  Maybe 20% of the descent is still on the lift road, but there's definitely a good day of downhilling there.  Hard trails, challenging stunts that are either bypassable or good to learn on, and good trails.  The only problem is that there's nothing that's not tiring on a 6-inch, 30 pound bike.  The easiest trail there was built like Bobsled, but the downhill bikes have chopped it up so much that it's an exhausting ride with tons of braking.  Others are harder.  I did ride a couple 10-inch wide stunts, which is as small as I've ridden.  A favorite was bigger - a roller coaster to a wooden berm. 

I just spent a night in Canmore, but liked the guys at Couloir Bike and Ski there.  Get off at the Silvertip exit, it's on your right 100 yards W of the A+W.

quickie update

I'm in Fernie, BC.  The riding and weather (warm and dry) are much more my style.  I'll be heading north soon to meet Creed in Calgary, then do some backpacking in Banff.

Whistler Trail Report 1

It's not all hype.  Whistler's bike park is big.  What surprised me the most was how much safer it was than Sun Peaks.  The big jump runs (A-Line, Freight Train, one or two others) have well marked lips, cheater lines around drops, and rollable tabletops instead of gaps.  Only the double-black and pro-only trails had mandatory airs.  These runs were pretty crowded but are 6-10 feet wide so passing is easy.  The non jump runs were pretty empty, ranging from warmup cruisers (B-Line) to tight and technical (Angry Pirate, think Johns but steep and rooty).

I only had one big fall of the day.  I tried to stretch a wall ride out to drop off the end instead of rolling down the side.  Bad idea - never try to stretch a wall ride, you don't have the centrifugal force.  I slid out 8 feet up, and unlike half pipes you come to a very sudden stop at the bottom.  Ouch.

I spent most of the day riding with a 10 year old townie.  The kid schooled me.

I've split the rest of my time between waiting out rain and riding xc trails.  The xc trails are good, but not what I'm used to.  There's just nowhere to go for a good, smooth 3000 foot climb.  The terrain and rainfall don't really permit smooth singletrack.  Instead you've got a bunch of rolling technical singletrack.  It's good, but not easy.  While some of my difficulty is just getting used to rainforest riding, Kill Me Thrill Me was tougher for me than Moore Fun and isn't considered especially challenging around there.  There aren't many singletrack loops, either.  I think it's due to land ownership issues but am not sure.  Regardless, most rides start or end with some time on the main road down the valley floor.

Logistical notes:

All the local shops have a crappy free map and a good topo map.  Take both as the free one does have good narrative descriptions.

Some locals warned me that dogs are sometimes stolen from the resort lots.  Instead of tying them to the trucks, leave them at Doggie Day Care in Function Junction.  It's a bit tucked away, but has made my stay much easier.

Overnight camping is allowed at the trailheads in the Whistler Interpretive Forest.  They aren't the best spots, but there aren't many good free sites around.

An aside - is there a pro named Scott out of Seattle that I should know about?  My first ride up was with a guy that, among other things, heckled Richey Schley from the lift.  Really nice guy.

misc - BC

I'm in Vancouver for a few days fleeing Whistler's weekend crowds.  Belle is boarded in Whistler.  It's probably fair to describe Vancouver as being like San Francisco with worse weather and better geography.  It's the kind of city where chinese food cost me less than the used books next door.

It's been raining for close to a week now and finally looks to have cleared up.  I'm ready. 

There's a large music festival going on near UBC this weekend.  I plan to pay a visit.

I plan to spend the coming week in Whistler (I have a couple deliveries coming, plus more riding to do), then work my way east to meet a buddy for a few days backpacking in Banff.   After that I'll slowly work my way back to Salt Lake City.  How time flies.

I recently caught myself saying "eh".  As in "Hey Belle, looks like a good campsite, eh?"  I may soon manage to get "eh" and "ya'll" in the same sentance.  Keep your fingers crossed.

Montana pics

Montana pics are up in a flickr album.

Kamloops trail report - Holy Cow, eh

I spent two days in Kamloops, one day at the Sun Peaks ski resort, one day at Pemberton Creek Park.  (Disclaimer - parents, stop reading now.  Everyone will be happier.)

RossH recently mentionned that he was afraid to ride Whistler - he figured I'd wuss out of the hard stuff, but he'd try it all and eventually hurt himself.  Well, turns out that applies to the intermediate runs at Sun Peaks.  I realized something was up when the liftie laughed at my bike, so I started easy on Gummi Bear.  It kicked my butt.  Looking for something easier I tried Bambi.  Yeah.  1 endo, 1 fall off the back, and a bunch of walking.  The runs are fairly technical, really steep, and take stones  (How big?  I wouldn't know - bigger than mine.)  Everything's hard, and the blue-black differentiation mostly just describes how big the gaps are.  I ended up having some great runs on trails that didn't rely on jumps.  One, Barn Burner, is mostly fast with big bermed turns  (think of a BC Bobsled).  The last move is a lot like the entrance to the bottom of Fire Swamp, but twice as high and full of dust.  I cleaned it on the fifth try, which felt pretty good.

I told a guy at the shop that I was more of an XC rider and he sent me to the local city park where he learned to ride.  I'd eyed those trails from the freeway and so was gratified to ride them.  Turns out that every climb I tried was obviously primarily a DH trail.  When I got to the top I took the descent that looked coolest from the road and ended up dragging my foot and using my rear wheel as a rudder.  Super steep and covered in deep dust. 

I did ask the mechanic about regular XC trails.  He said they had one under construction.

Missoula trail report

Missoula seems to be more of a roadie town.  I didn't find a ton of trails, and most of what I found wasn't all that interesting.  There is some good fast buff singletrack in an area called Sawmill Gulch off of Rattlesnake Canyon.  It's really smooth - you'd be best off riding it on a hardtail.  There are a couple climbs and a number of descents; each loop takes about an hour. 

Also, a shop disreccomendation.  Open Road did some really mediocre wrenching for me.  Two days later, I'm tweaking what they did.