10/06/2008

Mt. Washington: Review by an Islander Patrick Hamilton Photos - Rene Godin

"What the hell is all that noise?" Oh yeah, my alarm. I rolled over and turned it off. Still laying in bed, I thought about my day ahead: a 3hr drive from Victoria up island to ride Mt. Washington (1 ½ hours from Nanaimo).

It all started out on Monday morning after a weekend of sun and riding. The idea of sitting at my desk for another 5 days doing quarterly financial statements wasn't too appealing, so I started thinking about ways to bail out of work and go for a ride. I quickly checked the forthcoming weather conditions (mint) and checked to see if anyone else had booked vacation time off (no one). Seeing that everything was clear, I contacted the only buddy of mine who could also get out of work at the last minute. The next thing we know, we have a mid-week day off and everything in place for a road trip.

Just a week before, I'd gotten a chance to talk to Dave Hampshire (Mt. Washington's PR Director) to find out more about the mountain, what they had to offer to riders, and what they were planning for future biking seasons.

Dave told me that Mt. Washington has been welcoming mountain bikers since the early 1990's but didn't officially open its doors till 1995. They started out catering to the XC crowded but had recently been developing trails to meet the needs of the more extreme set. He informs me that they actually build trails for all riding levels, from the person who has never even ridden a trail to the hardcore downhill rider. Washington has over 30 km of single track split quite evenly between all three riding abilities.

They also offer a variety of weekly courses and guided tours for kids, women, and downhill riders. Their goal through these programs is to give visitors who have never ridden a trail the chance to explore with a bit of guidance so that they will enjoy the sport and continue on with it after they leave the mountain.

He went on to tell me that they had doubled their budget on trail building and maintenance for the coming year and have already seen a 20%-25% increase in visitors from the prior year (this was the week before VPS-fest). With the addition of the "Hawk" a six person chairlift (only one in North America) everyone, including management, was excited about this season.

Since Washington didn't open until 11am (open daily 11am to 8pm - $20 to ride all day) I was able to sleep a little longer before my buddy Rene picked me up. So after a few coffee, gas, and bathroom breaks along the way, we finally arrive at the top of Mt. Washington.

As I still had a few more questions about the mountain, I met up with Chris and Karen, the Mt. Washingtons's marketing gurus. When you talk with them you can feel their enthusiasm. It's very important to them that Washington is a family oriented mountain that has activities for everyone at reasonable rates (disc golf, mini golf, bungee trampoline, horseback riding, ATV tours, etc ). I was also told about the newest addition to their local trial building crew, Darren Berrecloth.

I was pretty excited to see the new trails and improvements from last year. This was my third year riding at Washington and the difference from two years ago to last year was incredible, I was hoping to see this same difference again. To start the day, we decided to hit Big Brother off the Hawk as a warm up run. Chris had told me that during VPS-fest the max. wait in line at the Hawk was only 10min (not bad when you have 600+ riders on the mountain at once). There are four trails that run off the Hawk; Big Brother, Finger trail (XC), Hustler, and Helter Skelter (which was closed for maintenance).

Right away, as we headed down Big Brother, we came across some new construction (an over/under bridge). After another series of drops/rollers/jumps we came out into the open, hit another well-built berm and into a big wooden kicker jump. I decide I would check it out first before going big. Like almost all the stunts on the mountain, you could either roll it or drop/jump it. It's a very clever design so even a novice rider can ride up and over it without catching any air yet still enjoy the feeling of going up and over it. The trail continued down into more berms, jumps, and drops ending in a fast downhill run right to the Hawk chairlift.

Our second run off the Eagle chair was Hustler, a rocky, newly cut trail that ends in a series of berms and table top jumps. Hustler cuts across the mountain so we decided to do a few runs off the Eagle chair. The Eagle is the slower of the two chairs (11 minutes - Hawk is 7 min) but the scenery is great. At the top, the terrain is very rocky..blasted rock to be precise. (Pinch flat heaven) We started off with Monster Mile, a very technical steep downhill section with is also part of Crusher (another black diamond run).

View from the top of the Eagle chair

The rest of the day we hit Crusher, and Hidden Alley, a relentlessly steep trail with a variety of drops, stunts and dirt chutes that is definitely one of our favourites. Regrettable we never did get to ride Helter Skelter.

During one of our runs we met one of the trail builders (Bonk). He told us that management had given them incredible support for all the building this year (the Hawk and all the trails that run off of it are new). We also talked about future trail expansion; riding through some of the newly cut trails, you can see that they are being built with the future mind. These trails builders only need time to groom their vision of the trails into masterpieces.

By the end of the day, we where exhausted and happy, our only wished was that we had another day to ride, which was even more tempting when we found out the cheap accommodation packages. But as tempting as it was, we decide it would be better, and healthier (our wives would kill us) to pack our gear up and head back to Victoria.

Overall, Washington is a fun, exciting mountain with incredible trails carved out of unique terrain. The employees are amazing; there is definitely an atmosphere of fun. As one employee point out "you're on vacation, you should be having a good time and if you aren't, it's up to us to help you have that good time". We definitely did.

Check out: www.mt.washington.ca