Chilcotin Adventure

The Chilcotins never disappoint! Guaranteed are lung busting climbs, beautiful views, and unexpected adventures. Tyler, Matt, and I recently spent 3 days riding and camping at spruce lake aka paradise. The plan was to leave Whistler Thursday morning and return Saturday evening. Everyone knows I always try to pack too much into my days and Wednesday was no exception. It was Caleb from works birthday so we headed to Pemberton to ride a trail named wild bill. Bill was wild and oh so sweet. Classic pemby, the trail was steep and deep. I planed to pack for the trip after the ride and before work… but the ride was longer than expected and a delicious feast at Sushi Village ate up more time than I had. It wasn’t until later that we found out we were to meet at Tyax resort with our gear to load up the floatplane for 8 Thursday morning. This made for a late night of packing in order to make our 5 am Whistler departure a reality.



Surprisingly enough the hurly road (rough logging road) didn’t murder green peace green. But, Matts bike took a beating. The road was so rough that his fork adaptor snapped off the bike rack causing his bike to fall onto the roof of the car. Luckily the bike was unscathed and we continued on our merry way. Upon arriving at Tyax we began to meet the rest of our riding group and unload the gear. With the gear now ready at the floatplane it was time to begin the ride up to Spruce Lake where we would be camping for the next 2 nights. My main focus on the 2-hour climb was to keep my eyes from wondering off trail to the beautiful meadows, steams, and mountains, causing my bike to follow me off trail on more than one occasion. After summiting windy pass (as the name suggests it was very windy) we were treated to fast smooth single track all the to the camp. Once the camp was set up, trail stories were swapped and the next days rides were planned. I also put my new fishing rod to the test… catching nothing, penny thinks I fail and shouldn’t be able to call myself an Islander now. On the other hand the Douger taught Tyler well as he managed to catch a little pinner on the catch and release program.





Day two proved to be a little too adventurous and stressful for all of us as you will come to read Matts account of getting lost at night in the middle of nowhere, seeing bears, and spending 13 hours on the bike… We did a loop, which involved summiting Dear Pass. The views were amazing, the stream crossings were cold, and the hikers we ran into from Vancouver were whiners. After crossing one of the streams one of the guys said to me “try doing that with a 30 lb pack on your back” as I look back at him wondering what he thinks the 15 lb pack and 30 lb bike I’m carrying weigh… not the sharpest tool in the shed that’s for true!







We had two options for our day 3 ride back to the cars at Tyax resort. Half went out by way of a trail named Jewl , and the rest of us rode out by way of Lick. Lick is the trail we rode last year and it was every bit as good the second time around. It was funny when we started the decent, it was like I had ridden the trail a hundred times as I knew every root and rock, when in reality I had just watched our helmet cam video a way too many times haha. Although this was the perfect ride to end our trip with Dunken was the only one to make it through the ride unscathed. I fell in a stream, Tyler fell in a swamp, and Penny fell in a ditch.

The Circus Came To Town

Working all day and staying up all night has made me happy that crankworx is finally over. One of the most memorable moments over the last week of festivities had to be the Saint Deep Mountain Photo Challenge. This contest is modelled after the Arc'teryx Deep Winter Challenge which has been around for a few years now. 6 photographers are given 3 days to shot around Whistler with whomever they please and create a slideshow capturing each sport and the corresponding lifestyle. I have to say that I was completely blown away by the quality, creativity, and diversity of all the slideshows, but in my mind Jordan Manley (http://ww.jordanmanley.com/) was clearly the winner and the judges agreed awarding him first place. His show focused on the dedication of the whistler bike park trail crew and their tireless efforts to keep the worlds most ridden trails running day in and day out all season long. It was truly moving and perfectly captured the soul of what mountain biking means to me. I will post a link to the slide show when it becomes available. We were also able to catch the best trick and air DH competitions.



This guy got back up and tried whatever this was supposed to be again! But just ended up with the same result... oh the pain.





On the riding front I haven't touched my DH bike since it ate my shin last week, although I went on a sweet adventure the other morning. We are leaving for a 3 day camping trip in the Chilcotins Thursday morning, so in order to get some major vertical climbing on the legs I decided to re-ride The Khyber Pass. The only difference this time was instead of taking the 2 lifts most of the way up, I climbed from our front door. As one is not allowed to climb up the access roads through the park, I got an early 7 am start. It was a damp morning with fog engulfing the mountain. I made it all the way to the park boundary before a truck emerged from the fog telling me I wasn't allowed to be up there, although he wasn't going to make me go back down the mountain…. like I was going to ride down the fire road after hours of climbing! The fog was thick with at best 10 m of visibility. As I made my way out of the bike park, I started singing out loud along with my Ipod to alert the bear who frequents the area to my presence as I climbed. By the time I reached the trailhead the fog had burnt off and the visibility was much better. After a PB and J sandwich (with Island strawberry jam thanks to Alice and Emily) at the "The Stu Inn" I began the decent. The trail was in perfect shape with the damp dirt providing limitless traction. I proceeded to flow downhill with a big shit eating grin for the next 2 hours. I don't often go for solo rides but there is something special to be said for just being alone far off in the forest.









Matt recently got the new HD gopro helmet cam and here is a video we put together of us playing on the lost lake trails. In the video I'm riding a demo 2011 giant anthem 29er, i have to say that although those wagon wheels took a little getting used to on the corners. Once you got them up to speed it just devoured whatever the trail through at it. Was nice to finally get a chance to try out a 29er.

loSt lake loop from Ben Crook-Hanna on Vimeo.

The list of injuries is in no way slowing down with Tyler being the unsuspecting victim this time. I think I mentioned Tyler had crashed about a week back and had hurt his hand. Well it turns out he broke a bone in it so make sure you send all your healing vibes his way as the Chilcotin trip is fast approaching. I had a customer at the shop today baffled that everywhere she went you see people in casts and slings. Its getting late in the season and the dry conditions have claimed many a tired rider. A quick walk through the village is a good reminder to remain on your a game when out on the trials.

Slaving away for the MAN

The system was in shock sunday after putting in a 10 hour day at the new job. I had grown very accustomed to waking up around noon, hitting the trails, then lazing around for the rest of the day. Although I have to admit its great to have a little structure back in my life. If you haven't heard Tyler and I have began working for Summit Skis and Bikes. Its a sweet shop located right beside the chairlift in upper village. It didn't take long to get into the swing of things, lots of rentals and just chatting to customers. The customer base is a little different than I'm used too coming from the Island. The big trend this years in the bike park are Leatt braces ( a $500 neck brace), it seems quite common for a family to come in and buy their kids a brace and why not toss in a new Troy Lee D3 helmet they are only $600... At least its for safely equipment.

In the riding department, things have been great! Got to rip ride don't slide again and over post ride beers it was decided we would head up to ride a trail called The Khyber Pass (named after a famous mountain pass linking Pakistan and Afghanistan). After taking the lifts to the top of the mountain it was about an hour bike/hike to the trailhead.... then a few thousand vertical ft down! On our way to the trail we stopped at The Stu Inn, a memorial ski hut built for a skier who was killed in an avalanche quite a few years back. His friends built all the walls in the village then carried them up the hill using a groomer... a neat little piece of whistler ski history.









The last two days in the bike park have also been amazing! It rained a bunch more and conditions are prime. The upper mountain trails are blanketed in a thick fog, giving it that classic wet, slick, and misty BC feel. The lower mountain trails have just sucked up the moister leaving perfect tacky tails behind. Been bagging as many laps as possible, although gonna take the day off today as I ripped open my shin yesterday... and should really clean DH bike after ridding in all that mud.



The village has been in crazy mode ever since Crankworxs began last saturday. Crankworxs is a week long mtb festival and one of the biggest in the world. The village is swarming with company tents, live demo shows, and people. We caught the dual slalom event the other night. Gee Atherton took the pro mens win, while local favourite Micayla Gatto won the womans side. I'm off to watch the Canadian Open enduro so cheers for now.

DH Days of Summer

Tylers cross-country bike is still out of commission so the DH bikes have been in heavy rotation. Although we have been loving/killing the bike park on a daily basis, the park is hurting. Summer is in full swing with no rain for weeks (more on this later) crank works bike festival courses are getting most of the trail crews attention these days so the park is rutted and dusty. One of our many chair lift conversations turned to “so when are we gonna get these DH bikes on some fresh single track”. Not even 2 runs later we met up with the boys from summit bike shop and a 45 minute push off the beaten path later we were having beers at the entrance to ride don’t slide. The trail was incredible there were about 12 of us just flying down the mountain with bodies flying everywhere, we figured everyone had a least 2 crashes on the ride down. Didn’t mater one bit as the trail was just loamy single track with the odd steep shoot. Picture Kents Kamikazi freshly cut but 30 minutes long! The only downfall to this ride would have to be the 10 km ride back to the village on a 40 lb dh bike, but oh so worth it.





Other than that the only productive thing going on around here is that I finally managed to get an ok video put together of some riding in the bike park. Just a few clips from a run we did the other day, hope you enjoy and we will try to get some better videos together before too long.

Whistler Edit 1.0 from Ben Crook-Hanna on Vimeo.

As for it being so dry and such… It finally rained, and Matt on his first major ride got caught half way up a mountain in a hail/thunder and lightning storm. According to him it was not an enjoyable experience.



Yesterdays rain made for a dark/damp day here in Whistler and I couldn’t let it go to waste. Poor Tylers xc bike is still sick so I meet up with Dave from summit bike shop and he took me to a trail called train wreck, as it runs through an old wreck site complete with abandoned box cars. It was so cool! all the box cars are covered with amazing graffiti. Although not super long it was extremely fun and beautiful. The forest was alive, with the recent rain the forest was just radiating with lush green moss, floating steam in the trees, and the wonderful smell of damp cedar!