After finishing Stormy 2 person relay the next adventure was
the South Chilcotin
Mountains.
The plan was to fly into Lorna
Lake back then ride back to
Tyaughton lake. I was a bit concerned
with the ride as my legs were still sore from Stormy on the Tuesday and only
starting to feel normal again on the Wednesday, the plan was book to fly out on
the Thursday.
Wednesday night we started
to pack our bags making sure we had the extra just incase stuff (head lamps,
emergency bivy sack, tools, spare parts, extra clothes and
food. The girls were starting to wonder if we were
planning on come back or not, but I have had a 9 hour run turning into a 27
hour adventure before. I think they were
mostly concerned because they were riding the next day.
We shuttled a truck down the logging road as
to not have to ride an extra 10 km up hill after a 9 hour ride. The plane picked
us up at 9:00 am. The plane is a 6 passenger Dehavilland Beaver
to carry bikes the back two seats are taken out. The flight is fantastic showing you the route
you will be biking out. We flew into Lorna
Lake and our route was Lorna pass along
Tyaughton creek, up Deer pass, down to Trigger
Lake then Hummingbird
Lake and then follow Gun creek
trail out to truck.
Off the plane, tires
back on the bike and ready to ride. We only
made it maybe a kilometer before crossing a creek and then having to hike a
bike up Lorna pass. There is not much of
a trail here and lots of scree and loss gravel.
I made it to the top of the pass and said "I would have been here a lot
quicker if I was lugging this 30 lbs bike up the mountain". Now the biking began down nice single track. Until Deer pass, at first you could bike up
most of it then it just got harder and harder finally you just walking your
bike. It is getting close to 1:00 pm, I am hunger and tired are we every
stopping for lunch? After a sandwich and
pumping water and feel much better and start off on the push up Deer pass. The top of Deer pass (2,331 m) is more
fantastic views.
From Deer pass it is pretty
much down hill the rest of the way with some small up hills. Every uphill quickly burns the legs and you
wonder how long it is going to last. We
stop at Hummingbird Lake
and enjoy a nice swim and then continue down the
trail. Not long after leaving Hummingbird and
enjoying some nice down hill my derailleur catches I slam on the brakes, but it
is too late I snapped my derailleur hanger into. Two of the other riders have spares but a derailleur
hanger is ever specific to each bike.
After many chain brakes and reconnecting we finally set my bike up with
one gear. I get granny two (the second
lowest gear). This is good for going
uphill but doesn't help on the nearly flat or down hill. The good new is I can peddle and it is mostly
down hill out. It turns out to be and
other 3 ½ hours out.
Going down the
river was fantastic single track trail lots of fun even with one gear, this is
the reason we are on bikes. Here I was
glad to have a bike and was thinking this is were the pain would really set in on
a run. I had a great ride and would
recommend the route to any with experience backcountry riding or running. We are already talking about going back again
next year maybe even do two float plane drops.
More pictures
Summary Data
Total Time (h:m:s)9:12:02 10:27
pace
Moving Time (h:m:s)6:49:22 7:45
pace
Distance (km)52.82
Moving Speed (kph)7.7 avg.
43.1 max.
Elevation Gain (m)+1,628 / -2,674
(Note I managed to hit the stop button on my watch and
didn't notice for couple of hours the actual route is probably closer to 60
km).
More info:
Camping at: http://www.tyax.ca/
Flights at: http://www.tyaxair.com/
BC Parks: http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/parkpgs/spruce_lk/
Comments
Cool Adventure!