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Prospector pics

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First ride since Saturday – always nice after work on a Friday.  With two clear days, the snow is gone from all but the peaks & the trails are pretty dry.  I threw the bike in the back of the car & went & hit the Prospector Trail after knocking off work – how great is it having sublime riding one minute’s ride from work?  The nice blue skies had gone & with them my hopes of getting great photos of all the brilliant fall colours that have sprung up in the last week.

It is three weeks since Alex & I rode this little gem of a trail & this time I remembered to pack my camera to get a few pictures to go with my previous trail description.  Unfortunately as I was by myself, there aren’t too many action shots.  The climb up the valley was harder than two weeks ago – my riding diary tells me I’ve only been on three rides in the last fortnight.  It’s amazing how quickly one can feel the effects of less riding & fifty-five hour working weeks.  So I pushed a bit more than usual up some of the steepest parts of the climbs & started to look around for photo opportunities in the gloom.  Unfortunately, being by myself, there are not many (rather, no) action photos – so you’ll have to imagine me riding over the features.

Riding up beside the Exshaw Creek – that slickrock on the left is where the trail ends

The first of many trail features – this one has a nasty gap at the end that you can’t see from here, thankfully there is a chicken route down to the right.

This part of the trail goes along the top of a short spur & has some more nice features.

Looking out across the Bow Valley (this is east [~15 km] of Canmore).

Looking over Exshaw – Heart Mountain on the left, not that you can really see the heart shape – it’s there – I assure you

Down in to the slickrock section

Work – for now

This one is good fun

around home, bikes, Canada, friends, hiking, MTB

Nothing too exciting

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It’s been a couple weeks & it’s been the usual mix of working heaps & riding. The riding has been curtailed a little in the last week due to the inclement weather. Summer has well & truly ended with some determination – it’s been cold & it’s snowed a few times in town. The highlight ride for the last two weeks has been a new trail called Razor’s Edge that word of mouth told us about. It starts near the end of the downhill from the Barrier Lookout (a ride Alex & I have done quite a few times now) & apparently comes out on the TransCanada. Friday before last was reasonably nice & I was keen to explore – so Alex & I parked on the side of the highway after work & rode up Quaite to the top of Jewell Pass. This is Mt Barrier (just right of centre) taken from high up at the cement plant.

We had to ride & push up the downhill trail for a few hundred metres before finally spying the trail branching off to the left. As the trail was quite newly cut, the traverse around to the next pass was quite soft & slippery (thankfully there were not too many roots). Before long we were at the pass – which we had to go along, not over for a change. It was pretty rocky & we appropriately spent quite a while riding along the Razor’s Edge. There were some good slippery drops of which we could do some, & some we weren’t going to attempt knowing that we didn’t really know how long it would be before we got off the trail. It’s always quite neat riding along big slabs of rock. We lost the trail proper at the other end of the pass, but with a bit of bush bashing following various coloured ribbons we were back on the trail climbing up & then around the next peak (the one on the left of the photo above, I think). The descent through the trees (we were by this stage on the reverse of the unknown peak) started off really step & slippery & not all rideable for us – it flattened out a bit, & became really fun before climbing a little & then dropping on to the final descent to the highway. We were a long way above the highway & the trail soon turned to being completely big slabs of rock. It was little hard to know exactly where the trail was, but there were sufficient cairns to make our way down eventually. There were some neat little rollovers & chutes to zoom down. One just had to be careful to stop & take the left turn twenty metres from the highway – or else some poor motorist would have had a MTBer flying off the cliff & landing on their hood. It turned out to be a two hour ride to do only ten kilometres, & it was a little epic in places (hence the slow pace) – but the downhill sections were both rewarding & challenging.

While I’ve got them here, here are a couple more pics taken from the cement plant – looking up the Bow Valley (Canmore is further up there, around the corner a little). It may even be a more scenic setting than NZ Steel; actually, it’s much nicer than the Manukau Harbour & dairy farms.

It was pretty wet in general last week, so not too many outdoor activities. Friday morning there was a good few centimetres of snow in town & even more out at Exshaw – when it cleared that afternoon, leaving work was really beautiful (even more so as it was the weekend). Saturday was unexpectedly clear – so I took the opportunity to pop up Ha Ling to get a good view over the Bow Valley & up the Spray Valley. I hadn’t been up there since February, when there was bit more snow around. It’s the easiest summit around here (about an hour up & just under an hour down – the descent time does tend to depend a bit on how slippery it is). The snow was melting by now, but there was still quite a bit around – out of the trees there was about twenty centimetres in some places – & a few chipmunks scurrying around. Nice to have some blue skies & a view for a change.

A nice ride after the hike around the G8 & that was Saturday afternoon. Sunday was a good day for watching TV programs & chocolate chai. The weekend ended on an unexpectedly expensive note after Alex spied a nice pair of alpine touring skis, bindings, boots & skins. They turned out to be in really good condition – so now I have a nice pair of K2s & it doesn’t really matter so much now if the snow comes in a hurry, as I want to go & try them out.

around home, bikes, Canada, friends, MTB

Summer (apparently it is) snow

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From what I can remember I’ve worked over a hundred & twenty hours in the last two weeks – but apart from the four doubles, it hasn’t been so bad. As I mentioned last time, my birthday was a write off (with one of those double) – but it was great to get some nice packages & cards from home. The cement plant is still going well, but I may have somewhat inadvertently done myself out of a month’s work by absolutely dominating the conveyor survey – all the plant auditing is done now as I easily find my way around the place & its one hundred & seventy conveyors with the process flow diagrams. Now we are just writing up all our surveys & my Excel prowess is surfacing after lying dormant for a few years now. Bagel baking is just that at the moment, although I’m finishing now at about midnight, not two in the morning.

Near the end of the week before last I finally had a bit of free time to pop around & introduce myself to Finnian Lawrence & see how Megan & Alex were doing. I’m not sure Finnian remembers much of that, having missed out on the great date of 24 August & being born the day before. As expected he spends his time sleeping, feeding & I assume crying (I seem to have missed most of that so far – must be my calming presence). After a chocolate chai for the three adults (probably a bit too soon to introduce Finnian to them), Alex & I popped out a quick loop of the G8. By quick I mean that we weren’t away from home for long – we were both pretty slow due to lack of sleep over the previous week. The trail was in great condition & it was good to get out.

That evening I headed over to Banff for the first time in ages to meet up with a guy from Yorkshire that I met while working construction at the Banff Center. Dale had come over to Canmore a fortnight prior for a bit of shuttling. This time he was the guide as we drove up to the Norquay ski area & headed out to ride Upper & Lower Stoney Squaw. From the car park we had half an hour of steep climbing. Dale with a big DH rig walked most of it – & with it being so steep & technical in places I walked some chunks of it. It getting in to early evening when we left & the weather hadn’t been all that bright all day, so we were getting close to running out of daylight. Also, the view over Banff & the Bow Valley wasn’t quite as spectacular as it might have been. Reaching the summit, Dale armoured up for what was obvious (from our elevation & the view) going to be a long downhill. I did the token seat drop & we were away. The first part of the descent was the most technical with some nice rocky sections & tight corners. Strangely, there were also a few pinch climbs & some flat pedally sections. We were buzzing by the time we came out near the second chairlift & hit the lower section.

Lower Stoney Squaw started with a big wide (compared to the previous section, probably only two metres wide) grassy descent that was really fast & then all of a sudden funnelled in to singletrack – we had to kill a lot of speed quickly. The lower section was generally a lot faster & none of the patches of rocks necessitated slowing down a lot. Many of the rocks were great for popping off & one could be reasonably sure of a good landing. We loved this section & as it flattened out & even climbed ever so slightly I was able to get in front of Dale & even stay in front for a while. Just before we came out on the TCH, there was another fast steeper part & then a cool jump that had a really easy landing. Even I managed to get what felt like quite a bit of air. After pushing back up the hill a few times & hitting the jump again we were spat out on the highway – crossing this we rode back in to town to Dale’s house, hopped in his car & drove all the way back up to Norquay (glad we didn’t ride that rode) to pick up the Legacy. I must also add that the few days around here had got quite cold & snow was noticeably appearing on the peaks & hanging around for days on end.

The following Sunday was miserable weather wise, so it was a day at home doing chores, reading, watching TV & working on the bike. Alex had done well to spot mention of a small new trail out near the cement plant at Exshaw. So on Sunday evening I loaded up the car with my bike & associated gear in anticipation of a post-work ride on Monday. It took me a little while to find the trail head for Prospector as the construction site for the new wastewater treatment plant had squeezed it almost in to the creek. At only about seven or eight kilometres long, it turned out the trackbuilder(s) had squeezed an awful lot of riding in to that. It started out pretty much with a half an hour climb up the valley – the first part was the steepest & I don’t think I rode the whole thing. It then flattened out a little before heading up to the highest point through a series of switchbacks. Then the descent started, forming a little bit of a figure eight with the uphill track; with all the rain the day before & it being a newly built trail it was quite slippery in parts. As you can see from some of the photos from the first link above, there were quite a few trail features that had been built. I could ride some of these, but looking at some of them & how slippery they looked & considering I was by myself there was no way I was attempting them. The part of the downhill that was closest to the creek was the Wonder Ridge loop & it had a steep little climb to get up to some rocky technical bits – here I couldn’t ride most of the little structures. After fixing my obligatory puncture & crossing the uphill trail again there was a little bit more climbing & traversing before some almost slickrock riding. I managed to lose the trail right at the end & getting stuck behind some condos – I eventually made it out after carrying my bike through a lot of bush. A great ride & so close to work & easily done in the time after work before it gets dark (at the moment). I was keen to show Alex this trail that he had found for me, so we headed back out to Exshaw after I had just got home from work on Friday. The trail had dried out a lot & we both really enjoyed it – it was even better this time as it wasn’t as slippery, I didn’t get a flat, didn’t eat dirt on one particular drop (or any others) & we found the last section of trail that I had missed on Monday.

Saturday dawned reasonably brightly & rolling out of bed at nine I was quickly trying to organise the day’s big ride. Not sure that Alex would be able to get away from home for half the day – I wanted to ride Powderface Ridge, ninety minutes’ drive away – I got in touch with Gerry. Gerry is back in Canmore after returning from home in Mexico & I had met him in January as he is a friend of Craig’s. To my surprise, Alex was able to join us so we set off with the wagon well loaded with three bikes & three people. As it was the last long weekend of the summer, there was masses of traffic streaming west to the mountains from Calgary – we were glad to be heading in the opposite direction. Parking near the Elbow car park (from this previous ride) we were all bemused by this sign – it begs one rather obvious question.

As the trail was a one-way, we had seven kilometres of gravel road to warm up on first. It had a little climbing in it but nothing serious & it took us about half an hour. The sun was out & we had good views of the Nihahi Ridge:

& looking back towards the three mountains Alex & I had ridden around a fortnight before.

Reaching what we assumed was the trailhead (a strange lack of signs), we started up through the forest & almost immediately were on one of the toughest & most technically long climbs I’ve done in a long time (it seems I’ve had some difficult climbs in the last week – maybe I’m just becoming less fit & strong). None of us managed to ride close to the whole thing as the loose rocks would send one all over the place when you were just really trying to keep going up. The trees started to clear a bit & we came out where the walking track from the other side of the ridge came up & joined our trail.

(Note the snow in the background – that wasn’t there two weeks ago).

While we had been climbing there had been some pretty loud rolls of thunder just off to the north & we started to get a few drops of rain. Leaving the rainjackets in the car wasn’t looking like such a great idea. From the trail junction we still had plenty more climbing up through more trees – this was less technical & then we were on to the ridge proper.

This looks like a nice gentle climb along the ridge, but when we hit those trees it got really rocky & tricky – we were soon walking parts of it

The rocks continued & as we rode/pushed along the ridge we sort of misplaced the trail & as the weather was getting colder & it was still threatening to rain we decided after fifteen or so minutes to go back to where we last had the trail & take that route (that seemed to go down the wrong side of the ridge) down. With quite a few switchbacks, this part rode really well & I was having to work to keep up with Gerry in front of me. Mind you, that was made easier when he landed obviously a bit to hard & pinch-flatted.

Still enjoying this downhill, we were rudely shocked by some muddy stream crossings that then changed in to five minutes of climbing & pushing. Soon we were out on a grassy spur that took us over to the side of the ridge we wanted to be on. Then the downhill really started – first very quickly through the open area & then it got steeper & rocky again.

The trees were really close to the trail as well – fortunately there were plenty of options as one adjusted one’s lines to that allow for the position one found in. We flew down there, with the exception of stopping to allow our hands to recover from all the rocks & hanging on to the brakes. It was just as well we didn’t meet many hikers coming up the other way – but we must have been making plenty of excited noise as those we did meet gave us plenty of space. Back at the car, we had dropped three-hundred vertical metres very quickly & we all had manic grins on our faces.

So, there you have it – three new rides in less than a week & couldn’t even tell you my favourite. Of course, they have to go up against all the rest of the rides I’ve done over the previous ten weeks. So even though, summer seems to be coming to an abrupt end – I don’t mind too much. Especially when you see this just walking around the corner:

Even going to the grocery store (they don’t really know what you mean here if you say supermarket) isn’t too much of a chore – everytime I walk out carrying my shopping a grin appears on my face as I look up & see this:

Incidentally, those houses on the other side of the traffic lights is where I live

bikes, Canada, MTB, roadtrip, travel

A little more BC riding

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Making bagels seemed to go pretty well last week for the most part – I was able to get through the last of my three shifts with no little (or large) stuff ups, leave sixty-six dozen bagels in the fridge & finish earlier than I had been the previous week. A more-interesting-than-other-jobs opportunity came up at the temping agency – two or three months working at the cement plant fifteen minutes down the road. It pays a little more & I jumped at the opportunity to get back in to industry a bit & maybe get the brain ticking over a bit. It does mean that with my commitment to the Bagel Co (& a certain fondness for doing a little bit of baking a week), that I will be doing two (maybe three) doubles a week – sadly the first one will be on my birthday (that’ll be one to remember). Summer break is due to finish shortly, so the number of bagels required during the week should drop off & make life a little easier.

It seemed that a lot of the smoke from the BC wildfires had decided to visit Canmore on Friday morning & then sit in the valley for the rest of the day – it was pretty hard to see more than a few hundred metres across town (Calgary & Edmonton were worse apparently). Sitting around thinking about the possibilities of the next few days’ riding, I got another great job offer from PPP. This one was quite different – basically the owner of PPP (who works in Calgary) was going through town to Salmon Arm for a family reunion over the weekend. Having just returned from vacation, she had heaps of work to do & wanted someone to drive while she sat in the back & worked. So I played chauffeur for the weekend – & in return I got the weekend in BC, paid for six hours’ driving each way, put up in a comfortable hotel, the car for the weekend & more than enough spending money to cover the rest of my meals & a lift ticket at Silver Star (more of that later). So I jumped at the opportunity, with the one condition being that I could take my bike, for a weekend on new trails. So after a rush-pack, Nancy turned up at 4.30 on Friday afternoon. I had been dreading having to drive some huge SUV or pick-up for 400 km, but I was pleased to have a nice little turbo Audi (& a stick shift too) to drive around for the weekend (it went like stink). The Friday evening drive through all the construction was a bit of a drag, we eventually got to the family reunion at about 9.30 (gained an hour going in to Pacific Standard Time), I dropped Nancy off (after having been fed well by the rest of the family) & had the rest of the weekend to myself.

When I was riding with Quintin two weeks ago he was raving about the downhill trails (lift-assisted) at Silver Star & also mentioned how there was a good range of trails for different riding styles. So on Saturday, when the smoke didn’t look too bad I loaded up the car & made the seventy-five minute drive south to Vernon & up to Silver Star. Here I sort of joined the downhill set; sure, I didn’t have a full-face helmet, body armour, flat pedals & 8″+ travel on my bike – but I didn’t have to ride up hill for more than five seconds at a time so it was more ‘Downhill’ than I’d ever been. The day started pretty mild, but fine & I started to hit the blue trails. Super Star was my most ridden – it really did make one feel like a better rider. In parts it flowed really nicely & for once I was actually clearing & landing (modest) table-tops. Another trail, LTG, had lots of wooden features on it – about half of which I could ride. The snaky wall-ride at the start & this series of planks & teeter-totters were most enjoyable.

After ten runs on various trails my hands were pretty sore (by the end of the day I was having to uncurl my fingers by pulling them back with my other hand or the handlebars – I perhaps over inflated my (measly 2.1″) tyre in the hope of avoiding more pinch flats. Strangely, I was quite exhausted by 4 pm & as it was getting quite cold at the top of the chair lift I called it a day & headed back to Salmon Arm.

It was a lazy start to Sunday with a nice lie in & then lounging on the couch reading a Rebus novel (Resurrection Men – pretty good so far, not sure how I’ve missed this one in the past) before checking out. The grey & wet weather didn’t exactly have me bounding out the door, but I was determined to check out some local trails before I had to pick Nancy up at five. Five minutes down the road were the South Canoe trails – I managed to start chatting to a couple of local roadies that had ditched the skinny tyres for the day & were heading up the hill on their Giant Reigns.

Once I finally organised myself, we all headed up the fire-road – they were planning on heading up to some lodge & then doing a big loop back to town. It eventuated that they joined me for a bit more singletrack than they were planning on – I was more than happy to have local guides & people to talk to. The forest was really reminding me of riding in Rotorua – damp dirt-based singletrack, through beautiful green undergrowth & big tall plantation forest, & it flowed well too. I was really enjoying it & trying to show the roadies up (not too difficult). After we had been riding up for about an hour (with a brief singletrack interlude), I realised that we were now above the trail network & if I went any further with my new riding buddies, I’d be on fire-road for ages – so I hit the first trail down (Lee’s it turned out – this one was quite new). The few features were super slippery from the overnight rain & that made the otherwise easy wood rather tricky to negotiate without losing one’s front wheel.

Coming back on to the road we had just ridden up, next it was on to the appropriately named:

This started out really mild & it got me out of the rain that had started to set in – it came out on to a nice clearing for a while that on a fine day would have given a fantastic view. The trail then changed in to a nice flowy section then suddenly there was a big switchback & the trail plunged steeply down for quite some time. I was pleased to get down there mostly in control & without bailing. All of a sudden the trail was back to being tame again. I was spat back on the road near the transmission tower that we had passed earlier, so in the rain I headed back up for ten minutes to reach Lumpy. This was also a very damp trail that had some nice steep, but easily rideable, sections piled in with some fun little features (also some I wasn’t going to touch). Although quite gloomy in the trees, it was still beautiful & nice to riding some smooth & sublime trails. Getting a little cold in my shirt & rainjacket I’d had enough climbing for the day, so continued down on to the lower trails (much tamer & wider) to the car. Of course, when I got back to the car it cleared up & nice warm sunlight beat down to dry me out a little. I wasn’t too disappointed – I had some great BC riding & was off to a local brew pub (they’re everywhere in North America it would seem) for a late & very large lunch.

We got back to Canmore at a reasonable hour (10.30) & I was determined to get to bed & get some sleep before what will be a sixty-hour, five-day week. Of course, as always when you need to sleep, I couldn’t. I think this was mostly trying to work out whether Megan & Alex’s sudden trip to Calgary was anything to be concerned about – hopefully it’s just precautionary & the little one arrives safely soon. Plus, with the spare car gone & a little confusion getting keys for the other Outback I had to find a new way to the cement factory for my new job in the morning. Steve came through for me & leant me his very new & very large Dodge Ram pick-up – I managed not to knock anyone over & was stoked to find the steering wheel heater – fantastic little device that is on chilly mornings. Despite my tired state, I enjoyed getting back in to an industrial environment & seeing things that are quite familiar to me. They have two kilns there (4 & 5), I thought 4 looked about the same size as one of the ones at NZS – then I realised that the other half of it was behind the building in the middle. It’s one long kiln! 5 is more the size I’m used to.