It was EPIC. 4 days in British Columbia's iconic South Chilcotin Mountains, bikepacking with all our gear through marshes, over mountains, and across meadows. Here is a recap of each day with some more details at the bottom for anyone who is keen enough to try it, or something similar, themselves.
The first night we camped at Friburg campsite on Tyaughton Lake. it was a rainy night, and that rain plagued us for the first two days of the trip. It made for some chilly evenings setting up camp but looking back the rain made the dirt perfect for the eventual descents we got to enjoy, and also saved us from the beating sun.
DAY 1: Tyax Lodge to start of Little Paradise Ck Trail via Mud Crk FSR and Relay Creek.
After finagling ourselves a parking pass we left our cars at Tyax Lodge and were off!
The first day consisted mostly of climbing a rugged FSR for about 8 hours. The road eventually turned into single track and then essentially no track at all.
We found a "campsite" (1 log on its side and a fire pit) and set up camp as far away from the bear scat as we could. The rain forced us to scarf our dinner quickly and head to bed. 10 hours of biking today and a little nervous about what direction we were going to go tomorrow.
Day 2: Little Paradise Creek to Tyaughton Crk via an Awesome View.
In the morning we studied the map some more and decided to push through the overgrown grasses with hope that we would get back to a more major trail soon. it was worth the gamble as the trail eventually got more obvious and we were riding a nice single track again.
After lots of ups and downs we slowly saw the trail disappear again as we road through a wet, rocky, marshy flat land. the grasses eventually turned into tall bushes that were so hard to push through that Tom and I opted to carry our bikes over them instead.
Despite being flat this was mentally the hardest part of the trip as it took nearly 2 hours to get through this section and it seemed we were making very little progress on the map.
But eventually we got through the bushes and were climbing again (never thought I would be happy to be hike-a-biking up a mountain).
Throughout the trip the wildflowers were Incredible! Pink, purple, red, orange, yellow, white!
Eventually, after going up and down a few dozen more times Tom stopped to check the GPS and realized....we had taken the wrong trail about 4 hours back.
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| Tom about to check the map and realize we had turned off the "major" trail and onto a "minor" trail. |
After analyzing the map some more we decided on a new plan. and that plan was up. 400m over the nearest ridge.
And that push paid off. we finally came to our first awesome Chilcotin view!
And the best part about going up? Going down again!!
At the base of the valley we found our first sign! We were finally in a part of the park that was more popular and actually warranted signs. After that awesome view, the incredible DH, seeing signs of civilization and watching the rain clouds float away we went to bed excited for the next day!
DAY 3: Deer Pass
The next morning we contemplated our next move. Yesterday we had discussed taking the "easy way out" as we were exhausted and everything was taking longer then expected. But by the morning we had forgotten about our previous toil and were hyped to attempt Deer Pass. a 900m hike-a-bike to the most iconic view in the Chilcotins. We came all this way, it seemed crazy not to do it. So we thawed out our bikes and were off!
Climbing Deer Pass started with crossing a knee high creek then climbing through forest which eventually turned to steep sub-alpine. We hiked our bikes 90% of the way. But as we climbed the views got better and better.
After taking in the insane view we started the longest, most epic downhill we have ever done. White knuckle fast with incredible, ever-changing views the entire way.
After over an hour of DH we went through meadows and past lakes. 3 separate groups were staying at crystal-blue Hummingbird Lake, but we had another 2 hours of sunlight left so we pushed on for another hour and a half and finally, after a 10 hour day, made our last and final campsite.
DAY 4: Near Spruce Lake to Tyax Lodge via Gun Ck Trail/Road
Today was the grand finale. Fun flowy downhill through meadows, aspen and pine forests. As is the Chilcotin way their was still lots of up hill but nothing like we had experienced in the last 4 days. Almost the entire day was actually spent with butts in the saddle. The last hour was a huge punch up the FSR road back to our cars. We had people driving by in trucks cheering us on and the feeling of getting back to our cars was glorious. We took a dip in the sparkling Tyaughton Lake and then dined like kings at the Tyax Lodge. An incredible adventure that we wil never ever forget.
Some details of our trip:
Gear weight (including food)
Michelle:
Bike weight = 30lbs.
Gear weight (no water) = 20lbs
Tom:
Bike weight: 35lbs
Gear weight: 27lbs
Our Route
We had planned to take the 3 day route from bikepacking.com found here https://bikepacking.com/routes/bikepacking-the-chilcotin-mountains/
But we took a wrong turn at the horse cabin taking us left (south/west) off of Relay creek trail and onto Little Paradise Creek Trail. We took this until it intersected with Tyaughton Creek Trail. From there we took Deer Pass and finally Gun Creek Trail back to Gun Creek Road.
Hours Pedalled/Hike-a-biked Per Day (including short breaks and 15-20min lunches)
Day 1: 10h
Day 2: 8h
Day 3: 10h
Day 4: 5h
Distance:
We did not record our trip. Approx 130km and 3000m elevation. I'll map it out one day and post it.
