My BC Trip
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My BC Trip
Post by jduffett on Aug 12, 2008, 8:54pm
So, I just got back from my second (annual?) BC biking trip Sunday night...
Flew out on the 1st to meet up with some local buddies as well as others coming in from Colorado and Newfoundland. What with the highway to Whistler being closed due to the rock slide, we happily spent the weekend and early part of the week riding Seymour and Grouse... CBC, Ned's, Pingu, Pangor, Empress, Upper Oilcan & Oilcan, Crippler... That is about all I can remember off the top of my head. Was good to spend some extended time there, as in the past I haven't really gotten to know the trails that well. This time we hit some of them three or four times, so we started to get a bit more of a flow going! Extracurricular activities included fireworks, reggae night at the Rusty Gull in North Van (highly recommended), and some d**n fine roasted lamb.
Then we headed north to a friend's place in Squamish, and on to the bike park in Whistler. I only managed to get one day in at the park, which was just enough to get me back in the swing of things, and now leaves me craving some more airtime... There's nothing quite like the combination of Freight Train, Dirt Merchant, and A-Line! We then did a couple of sweet shuttle runs in Squamish (PowerSmart, Homebrew etc), and a brief return to the Shore.
That brings us to Friday, where we headed to Whistler again, and left one poor working sucker in Vancouver to arrange for a heli drop for Saturday. In Whistler, we split up for the day, and I made the difficult decision to forego the bike park in favour of Comfortably Numb, an XC ride of supposedly epic proportions. Epic it was--we climbed for a solid three hours or more with little interruption! Can't remember the total elevation gain, but it was pretty huge. It kind of leveled out on top with some up and down rock face type stuff, kinda like Buckwallow or Kanata Lakes with a view. The downhill back into Whistler was pretty appealing at that point, but I was actually a little disappointed with it, probably in part because we were all so tired by that point, but also in comparison to the full-on DH stuff we were riding before. Wicked climbs though. We arrived back in the village to the news that our heli drop was arranged for Saturday--5000' vertical, ~4 hr ride!
Saturday morning we awoke to rain, and a call to the helicopter company confirmed that visibility was poor and they wouldn't be able to get us up if conditions remained the same. We killed some time waiting for the weather to clear, but called it off around lunch time and headed back to Vancouver. So, bit of a let down there, but oh well, maybe next time!
I didn't take many pictures as my compact camera is on the missing list and I wasn't real happy to lug the DSLR around on the bike. I was kind of banking on bringing it with me for the heli drop, but oh well...
Anyway, here are the pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/metricfinethread/sets/72157606679296680/
Last year was actually better photo-wise, mainly due to the roadtrip aspect I guess.
Re: My BC Trip
Post by 1440brad on Aug 13, 2008, 8:40am
Great pics. Thanks for sharing.
I have always wanted to do a BC trip. The "beer" shots.... Was that waiting at the rock slide on the way to Whistler?
Re: My BC Trip
Post by thumbies on Aug 13, 2008, 10:55am
I like the 'handstand' pic...looks like you are combining mtbing and breakdancing
Dave
Re: My BC Trip
Post by jduffett on Aug 13, 2008, 12:48pm
Aug 13, 2008, 8:40am, 1440brad wrote:
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No, we got stopped for accidents twice on 99 for about 40 minutes each. The area where the rockslide happened is pretty well indistinguishable from the rest of the highway unless you're specifically looking for it (that's how much construction there is)!
Aug 13, 2008, 10:55am, thumbies wrote:
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Yup! All the cool riders are doing it you know!
Re: My BC Trip
Post by jackp42 on Aug 13, 2008, 4:24pm
Looks like you had some decent weather for most of your trip. You could have brought some of it back with you cause we desperately need it here. So far it doesn't look like that has happened though!