Chilko Challenge Day 2

Day 2 was our long day. It would consist of huge climbs, long alpine meadow rides and fantastic views. The initial weather forecast called for sun and clound, but the day started with beautiful sunny skies. Looking at the weather at the start of the day I re-evaluated what I was going to bring - neoprene gloves, nope don't need those. Goretex pants, gone. Wow could I have made any worse decisions.

The peak that you can see to the right in the picture above is Tullin Mountain. This is about 1/3 of the way that we would be travelling today. The day started with a 12 km road ride to get to the trail head. From here it was almost instantaneous hike-a-bike for over an hour.

Shortly after we started climbing the clouds opened up and it started pouring rain. By the time we all stopped to put our jackets on we were all soaking wet and as we were soon to find out, jackets on top of wet clothes is not the best way to stay warm. We got to the top of the first ridge and got blasted with the wind. We hunkered down as best we could and grabbed a bite to eat. After some deliberation with the other 12 riders that made it this far we decided that it was best to turn back. There was about 27 km to go at much higher and more exposed elevations.

About 5 minutes into our decent back to the start line things started to go our way. The sun came out and dried up all the rain (and the itsy bitsy spider....), so we figured what the hell, we're already up here, let's go back up. We had even heard talk of a fire up on the ridge. We climb back up over the ridge and down a small descent into an alpine meadow and we smell smoke. Our hands and feet are freezing , our clothes are soaking wet and we could not get to the fire fast enough. I paused to take a photo of an epic view of Chilko Lake and then ran over to the fire.

That fire ended up being one of the biggest highlights of the entire trip. Shortly after we left and started into another 400m climb the rains got worse, the wind was worse and the temperature dropped. We opened up into an open range cow pasture and 2100m and into 50-60 km/h winds. It started snowing and we could not find the trail across this meadow. At this point my hands did not move, I could not feel my feet and I was really starting to get cold. Me and Brandon could not keep up with Kim and Steve, but we put our heads down and hiked our bikes for over and hour across the open alpine. As it turned out, losing sight of Kim and Steve was one of the best things that could have happened. It forced me to get out my GPS and get us back on track. Up here somewhere was a small lake and a cabin with a fire burning. It was torture on my hands just trying to get my GPS out of my pocket and turn it on, I literally could not bend my fingers.

We grouped up with 4 other riders and worked out way to where this cabin was supposed to be. Finding this small cabin in the woods was one of the best sights I have seen in a long time. Back to Kim and Steve though, we got to the cabin and they were not there. I was able to get them on the radio and find out that they went down over the wrong ridge line. They were now 20 minutes behind us, and were freezing cold.

We all survived that adventure and decided that we were going to take the emergency route down from the cabin to the lodge. This consisted of a now wet cow path full of sloppy cow patties - dinner anyone. When we stepped outside, there was not a cloud to be seen, son of a bitch. We had come this far and were now somewhat dry and warm so we soldiered on. We only had another 200m of evevation gain and about 3 hours of riding to get back to the lodge. It was one of the best decisions we could have made.

The views were absolutely epic and the single track was awesome. We finished the ride with almost 1000m descent down perfect single track. It was close to 45 minutes of descending.

Back at the lodge most of the group was ahead of us as they all decided to take the emergency route down. We tried not to gloat too much about the epic single track and views, but we had to rub it in just a little bit.