TR: One last alpine ride...

I've skied in this zone in the winter before, and I always thought that the terrain looked perfect for mountain biking. To save myself a bit of heat from the authorities in case they are reading, I won't post up exactly where it is. Some PG locals might recognize it…and as far as I know, I'm probably the first person to bike-aneer this route (EDIT: nope…Forest beat me to it…see below).

I went solo, just me and the grizzlies/caribou, since I wasn't sure how this was all going to work out. I had never seen what the trail surfaces looked like, only covered in snow. So it was a total exploratory mission/deathmarch, which might have a little bit to do with all my riding with Leelau! It was a nice fall day, full-on fall colours, and surprisingly warm for october 6! The ride started off with a 3km/700m push through an inland temperate rainforest up to a big caribou meadow with some amazing views.


Right off the bat, I missed the turnoff to the trail I wanted to take, and instead wandered through the trail marked through the meadow which was a miserable swamp. So by 10:30am my boots were soaked and I already walked an extra 2km. Oh well, it's not an adventure until something goes wrong. Once I got back on track, I had to do some sweet bushwacking for another 400m vertical up onto a ridge. Check out the "trail".

At least I found some late seasons snacks…

So at this point, the "route" was extremely hard to follow. The trail was barely definied and mostly overgrown, with only some sketchy ribbons and markers in random trees to follow. It was pretty slow going and I was getting discouraged until I hit the subalpine ridge for some views across the rocky mtn trench:

Then I had a pleasant bushwacking subalpine ridge ramble to the target:

View of the pleasant ramble ridge:

6hrs of bushwacking, pushing, and carrying my bike (and maybe riding for 10 minutes…), I reached the summit:

Now for the 9km, 1100m descent starting in the alpine and ending up back in the coastal-like rainforest:

The video:
https://vimeo.com/30464934

All in all, it was a 25km total deathmarch. Over 1500m climbing/descending. Most of the climbing was pushing/carrying/bushwacking and a 8.5hr day. But the descent was 100% worth the effort. And now, I think it's time to hang the bikes up for another season and get pumped for snow season. I just officially decided to take the winter off after I graduate in december to take jan-may off and snowboard all over BC and alaska. game on!

Great story, thanks for posting! I fully support your plan to do something adventurous after graduating… hoping I'll do the same.

Putting the free back in free riding. Thanks for sharing.

nice ride, that one is lots of fun, did it twice last year. Camped at the top one time, bugs were unreal.

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Damn I thought I was the only person crazy enough to do that…oh well. Which way did you go up? out and back or did you do the loop between viking and sugar?

I did the loop and camped the first time, second time just up and back on the sugar side. Too wet and shitty by the meadows. I heard a couple other guys had done it a few years ago too.

Probably won't go up there again though, there are way way better trails for that kind of thing in the area.

That was pretty much what dreams are made of!!