Whistler: Crankworks and Lost Lake

A rider during the Slope Style competition doing the big projection screen drop

The Crew: Becky, Brian, and Dave

We headed out for a quick tour of the Crankworks Festival and a short, get comfortable ride. It is a quick trip by bike from the RV Park to the Whistler Village via the valley’s extensive bike trail system. As we arrived, the Crankworks’ Slope Style event was just starting up. From our position on the side of the hill, would couldn’t see everything but we did get a good view of the riders doing the curved wall ride, the satellite dish* and massive drop over the projection screen (see the pictures). We’d guess that the riders traveled around 40 feet vertical from launch to landing. Later we heard that three pro riders dropped out because they did not want to do this drop. I know I didn’t enter the contest because of this drop, and, maybe, the satellite dish, and, well, err, the wall ride, and, perhaps, pretty much every other feature on the trail. Maybe next year!

Whistler: Lost Lake, Blueberry, and River Runs Through It

Becky on Blueberry

The Crew: Becky, Dan, Scott, Brian, and Dave

For Dan and Scott’s first ride in Whistler, we decided to start out by heading up to Lost Lake Park for the always entertaining sequence of intermediate labeled trails that would take us over to Whistler Village. In the Village, Scott and Dan got a chance to see some of the finish of the last event at Crankworks, the downhill, and a bit of festival. Reports are that 25,000 people attended Crankworks this year. It seemed that many were still in town.

From the Village, we crossed over the highway, and, after some searching, found a trail that Brian and I rode last year, Blueberry. Blueberry trail starts with a steep climb from a neighborhood to the top of a knoll and then finishes with a quality descent full of rocks and big roots. No significant build-ups here. Just good, healthy ass kick’in trail under the canopy of the tall trees.

Pemberton!

Becky on the top of Overnight Sensation

The Crew: Dan, Scott, Brian, Becky, and Dave

Every time the topic of what trail to ride comes up, my standard response has been Pemberton. Today, the bluff was called and The Crew headed out for the short trip up the road to Pemberton. After some advice and a map purchase at the LBS, we headed over to the aptly named Mosquito Lake area. We parked in the gravel lot, and headed over to the bottom of Happy Trail for the start of the climb. Happy Trail is a tight, narrow trail that keeps you on your toes as you switchback your way up the hill.

At the top of Happy Trail, we took the brutal fire road climb up the hill until

Whistler: Kill Me Thrill Me

Scott on Kill Me Thrill Me

The Crew: Dan, Brian, Scott, and Dave

We were all feeling a bit baked, so we headed out for a shorter ride on Kill Me Thrill Me. Becky, who was riding later, was kind enough to provide a shuttle for the 5 miles to the trailhead, which we found after a bit of searching. Brian and I tried this trail last year, from the opposite end, which turned out to be the wrong way to go. We ended up turning around, exiting, and, on encouragement from a highway worker, decided to head to Pemberton. This year, we embarked on the trail in the correct direction.

Kill Me Thrill Me is a tough trail out of the shoot. The rocks and roots are intense and make the early obstacles and build-ups particularly challenging to enter. The trail

Whistler: Lost Lake and Comfortably Numb

The Crew: Becky, Scott, and Dave

The early morning clouds darkened and the rain showers started around mid-morning scuttling the previous nights loose ride plans. This was the first rain delay of the trip, so we can’t complain too much. Besides, later in the afternoon, the rain slackened and everyone got out for a ride, though in separate groups.

Scott, Becky, and I headed up to the Lost Lake area to explore some of the new trails and to look at the tail end of Comfortably Numb. After crossing the river, we took one of the green trails that spiraled up the hill. Ironically, this is the first time that I had actually spent any time on these trails. The green trails are smooth, evenly graded, and perfect for beginning riders yet still retain a distinct singletrack feel.

We connected over to the end of Comfortably Numb and went in. Comfortably Numb, an IMBA Epic Ride, is about 24 km long. A very fast time for the trail would be 4 hrs and many people take seven or more hours to complete (last year, when we bailed, we were on a 9+ hour pace). The trail tread is rooty, rocky and tough to roll. This makes many of the obstacles particularly challenging. We grunted and pushed to the top of the hill talking to the trashed riders who happened by as they were finishing the trail in proper direction. They all seemed to be happy to take a break as they went by and ready for their rides to end. We continued to the top of the hill and turned around for a fun descent. There was never a dull moment on the way down as the challenges are closely spaced. We’d still like to do this trail in its entirety at some point in the future, but it will take serious planning and preparation. Comfortably Numb is not suitable for tandems, singlespeeds, unicycles, 45 lbs bikes, novice riders, intermediate riders, most advanced riders, riders with a sense of self preservation, dogs, horses, cats, riders with poor fitness, those who have to have “flow”, and those who lack masochistic tendencies.

On the way back, we rode the trail that was being built that serves as an extension of Comfortably Numb. This, like all the trails in the Lost Lake area, was narrow, fun, and exquisitely built though not particularly difficult. If Disneyland had technical singletrack, this would be how it would look.

We continued back to the RV Park while exploring the trails in the area. At the end, a mother bear and her two cubs briefly blocked the path before heading into the woods. Becky volunteered to go first down to Jelly Roll Gum Drop to ward off the bears if they happened to head down that way. No self-respecting bear would stand up to Becky with a nasty attitude!

Whistler: The Bike Park

The Crew: Scott, Becky, and Dave

So what? I can pick my nose with my tongue, what's it to you?

Scott, Becky, and I headed to the Village for a lift day. Dan and Brian did their own things. The Bike Park day was a chance for us to reinforce the lessons from our class and to get out and enjoy some lift serviced downhill fun. The Whistler Bike Park is considered by many to be the premier lift serviced bike park in the world. It offers all sorts of riding options, as long as you intend to head down hill. The Bike Park is probably most famous for trails like A Line that provide a very fast smooth descent with many big air options along the way. Since our group was a tad bit more comfortable with our wheels within 3 feet of the ground, we focused on drop practice and some of the “cross country” style trails offered in the trail system.

Scott on the 2nd GLC drop, not using the techniques he just learned.

Pemberton, the Return Engagement

The Crew: Brian, Becky, and Dave

The morning saw the departure of Dan back to the Bay Area. Scott and Val left for Vancouver to meet Val’s flight tomorrow (Scott will return in Squamish). The remnants of crew decided on a return visit to Pemberton.

Squamish, Marc My Word

The Crew: Becky, Scott, Brian, and Dave

Brian on Tracks from Hell

Yesterday was the appetizer and today was the day for the feast. The map we purchased from the LBS shows 166 trails. We know of at least one additional trail not on the map, and there are likely many more. Needless to say, there are a lot of riding options in Squamish and we were only able to sample a few rides in the Garibaldi Highlands area.

The day dawned with low clouds and a heavy marine layer obscuring the snowfields on the craggy peaks that were visible on the way up to Whistler. The cool temperatures were ideal for riding.

Riding from the RV park was an option though the route would have been around 5 miles of road, so we opted to drive up to the parking area at the end of Perth (GPS

CBC Trail and Mt. Seymour

Becky on CBC

Subtitle: The Best Trail I Ever Walked Down

The Crew: Becky, Scott, Brian, and Dave

Thursday started with overcast and a threat of rain showers. We headed up to Mt. Seymour for our Main Event of the North Vancouver area. The shuttle was set by leaving Scott and Val’s RV in the Safeway parking lot and heading up the hill in the truck to the parking area above the trailhead. As we were putting on every piece of protective gear in our possession and readying the audiovisual set ups to document our assault on CBC, some local riders rode by and asked if we were going to lower our saddles. Of course, we said “yes” and they, as they rode off, said, perhaps apologetically, “Some people think that this [CBC] is a cross country trail.”

Mt. Fromme: Pipeline

The Crew: Becky and Dave

After a day off to lick our wounds, we headed to Mt. Fromme. Everyone we talked to told us that Mt. Fromme is a more difficult place to ride than Mt. Seymour. Perhaps it is a curious decision to head to a harder place to ride after our far less than spectacular showing at Mt. Seymour. With that in mind, we did a little more research on the web upfront and came up with a set of trails that we felt would be more to our level. We purchased a map and cross checked out trail choices at another branch of Cove Bike Shop on Main Street (this time without the frame of mind setting Canadian accent) and headed up Mountain Highway to the trailhead.

Getting to the Mountain Highway trailhead at Fromme is easy. You just take the Mountain