Friday afternoon Shane, Sean, James and myslef piled into a truck, bombed up Island from Victoria to Nanaimo. We enjoyed a nice leisurely 5 pm sailing across the water, then the real trip started. After driving several more hours, passing through Whistler, Pemberton, and a handful of other smaller towns, we ended up near Goldbridge, BC. We found the Gun Creek Ranch, found our “rustic cabin”, unloaded our stuff, and hit the sack at a little past midnight.
After awaking early the next morning, we started madly prepping for our ride. Our flight left at 8:00 am, and we were getting picked up at 7:45. We were flying on Tyax Air, and were on our way to do the Warner Lake tour.
We prepped on the dock, and got a little nervous about what was ahead for us.
Our gear safely stashed, we took off.
Our rag tag group of riders consisted of:
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| James | Sean |
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| Shane | and myself. |
The flight was spectacular, but short.
In about 15 – 20 minutes we reached our destination.
Warner Lake
The plane dropped us and our gear off, then boogied back to base.
I can never express how much I love BC! With scenery like this, how can you not?
We geared up, and began our trek. Quite simply this was an amazing day of riding. It was long, not that technical, but definitely there were some fun sections. Overall there was more climbing than we expected, but it was a ride of a lifetime. We went from Warner Lake, all the way back to our cabin some 40+ kilometres away. Lots of climbing, descending, traversing, and spectating. 3 hours in we stopped for lunch in a wide open meadow. Here we were sitting in a large meadow surrounded by spectacular mountains, overlooking a rushing river down below.The trail was true singletrack all the way. At times it was less than 3 tire widths wide.
Along the way we met some hikers using Llamas as support. These animals were used instead of horses, partly due to their lessened impact on the trail. Very cool!
We passed many wildflowers along the way.
The trail would dive down to the river, then climb up high again. It would traverse a while, dip into a meadow, enter some stands of trees, then spit you out into a scree slope traverse. Quite simply this was an amazing trail. Below are some more shots from the trail, in no particular order.
We were pretty tuckered by the time we got to the cabin. It was all we could do to lift the ice cold beer to our awaiting mouths.
The day was amazing. That is definitely the longest I have ever been out on a trail. Our group didn’t have any real crashes, no equipment failures, and no injuries. The scenery was out of this world, and the trail was incomparable to an other I have been on. If you are looking for an epic day of riding, I would highly suggest you email Tyax, and get more information.
That was Saturday. Sunday was a mighty fine rest day. We goofed around at the cabin, explored the ranch, obeyed the rules, went to town for some much needed groceries. and ate tons of food.
Monday morning we got up super early again, packed the truck, then headed out for the long drive to Whistler. Along the way we squashed many bugs, again saw lots of amazing scenery, almost got squashed by very big trucks on a very tiny road, then got to Whistler.
Whistler is so much fun, it is hard to stop and take pictures. We warmed up at the jump park, then started to hit some of the other trails. I ended up getting us lost a couple times, but we always ended up on fun trails. Unfortunately for Shane, he munged his ankle in the jump park. He went a little too big of the largest platform, missed the nice transition, and landed on the flat. Ouch!
I was having a great day at Whistler, and had made up my mind before getting there that I was going to hit the biggest GLC drop. I am happy to say that I did just that! I was pretty stoked afterwards, and my legs quivered for a bit, but I had done it. Over the course of the day I did it one more time to prove to myself that the first wasn’t just a fluke. Seaners looked at the middle GLC drop a few times, and decided he was going to do it before the day was out. He also stepped up and did it, and I htink James followed suit too.
Our last run of the day was our fastest rip of the day down A Line. That is such a sweet trail that even thinking about it now brings a grin to my face. I was clearing tabletop after tabletop. I was even tweaking out my airs a little I was having such a great day. Alas it had to end. We crammed back into the truck just after 5pm, zipped to Horseshoe Bay, and got on the 7PM sailing to Nanaimo.
It was such a great weekend, and all four of us were pretty fried by the end of it.
Loads of riding, good friends, constant joking around. What more is needed in a road trip?
The above has been a sampling of some of the pictures I took on the weekend. To see them all go here.