I saw the post the other day on the extended climbing route in Squamish. This is great news indeed. A number of similar climb trails have been put in place over the past few years on the shore as well.
Although I don't like climbing, at least spinning a paved road, or gravel road, or even Old Buck for that matter, I do like the climbing trails. I suck at them, but I still like them.
For me some of the early climbing sections that I liked were the parts of Bridle path where Sticks and Stones crosses or Cardiac Bypass before it go smoothed out. These slower and technical climbing parts provide a good challenge of balance, power and some fitness (usually shorter sections so fitness was not a key part).
Then with trails like Sticks and Stones, Salamander, R[HTML_REMOVED]R, Penny Lane, GSM these climbing trails took on a new challenge. Some longer technical climbing sections that fitness became more of the picture, still some technical parts but the legs and lungs factor in a little more. On the trails mentioned I can clean the technical parts, with the exception of big rock on S[HTML_REMOVED]S in the reverse direction), but depending on how I feel, I may need to catch my breath on some of the trails, despite how slow I climb them.
The other day I ventured over to Fromme and rode up the climbing trail (No Quarter). This trail is fantastic and hopelessly evil all at the same time. A few of the harder tech bits have been smoothed over a little, but still some good challenges especially when you consider the length of the route and the vertical. The description on Trailforks for No Quarter says that it gets more challenging the further you go. I would tend to agree, but that could be the lack of oxygen getting to the brain and body parts as well.
Just curious to see what people think of these routes and how often they hit these climb trails. I looked on Strava and noted some of the times for the route are crazy fast, including 25-30 mins up to Executioner, or 30-35 mins up to Mtn Hwy. My times are about double that and it is busting it. I guess I need more leg power to get into higher gears and climb faster and a second set of lungs, because the set I have doesn't seem to keep up to my current snail pace times.
Still need to get over to Cypress and discover the climbing routes there.
What are some of your favorite technical climb routes. How long are the climbs and what difficulty level
Cheers - happy climbing and descending.