Words by Sharon Bader. Photos by Sharon, Lee Lau, Trevor Hawkins and Mark Rowe unless otherwise noted.
Useful links:
- General guide to riding in the Kootenays – Tourism BC
- Wadey Forest Service Camp Site (Revelstoke area)
- Flowt Cycles Revelstoke bike advice and service with a smile
- Information for Keystone Standard Basin
- Box Lake Forest Service Camp Site (Nakusp – New Denver area)
- Wilds of Canada Bike store – NewDenver (Rob 422 – 7th Avenue, New Denver Call: 250.358.7941 E-mail: wildsofcanada@yahoo.ca).
- Previous article about New Denver riding on NSMB.com– see my site if the NSMB link is dead
- Mt MacPherson trails (Revelstoke)
- Kootenay Backroads Mapbook
Once again with a forecast of impending torrential doom we tempt fate and head east to the Alpine single track you can only get in the Selkirks range of the BC interior. Again we camp at the Wadey Forest Service Campground 25km up Hwy 23. It’s become more popular with the locals as an affordable spot to take the family to fish or just hang out by the beach. Our spot from last year was taken when we got in Sunday night!
Fortunately by the time we got back from our ride the spot was free and we moved in!
Sweet beach access from our site! Perfect place for morning coffee and afternoon beer.
Mark enjoying his LD chais lounge
Keystone Standard Basin is another 25km up Hwy 23 from the campsite, then 15km up a newly graded logging road to 1750meters. From here it is a short climb through the trees then into the Alpine!
Photo
The flowers were going OFF. Perfect timing.
Trevor with his Deuter tumour!
Rolling into the Basin straight ahead and around to the left.
Lee riding through the daisies.
Frenchman’s Cap and the Monashee Range was ever pervasive in the background. The mildly cloudy skies took away our brilliant blue sky so the mountains are a bit lost in the contrast.
Views around every corner
climb climb climb!
This is the start of the final descent to the cabin. As we have been here in 2002 and in 2007 this time we went just past the trees where the views to the North and East allowed us to see Sir Sancford and the Adamant range where we have ski toured before at Fairy Meadows.
Meadow tristing
We rode back up to where we had lunch and headed towards Keystone Peak. We hiked up to where it started to get rocky and had some stellar 360o degree views. We hung out here and killed some horse flies.
Mark getting in touch with his sensitive side
Trevor and Mark pushed their bikes up the ridge, while Lee and I hiked.
The snow is the biggest indication that the riding season here is short! Apparently there was snow on this trail until the end of July.
The view in the panoramic below is from the ridge west and backside of Standard Basin. The trail is to the left of this left peak. Keystone peak is farther back of this ridge and not in sight. The mountains of Revelstoke National Park are in the centre of the picture. Just to the right of those peaks is the cleft of Revelstoke Lake then the Monashee Range.
Trevor getting in some turns!
An unfortunate Specialized victim.
The picture below shows us heading back along the trail. If you look closely at the treed area beside the basin where the snow is you can see the switchback part of the trail where we rode. We also rode across those snow patches.
The view that didn’t turn out with the hazy sky.
Around some of the basin you could see slides and the nasty rock in this area.
Back at Wadey we take in the sunset with a beer at a great Alpine singletrack day!
Mark brought his Canadian Tire special tent! Trevor’s one-man light-weight Hubba could use this as a fly!
Now THIS is car camping!
Might be time for us to get a new tent!
Sleeps one person with a queen sized air matrress.
The end of this track is where we turned around. The trail continues down to the Snow Mobile cabin and a lake. Since we’ve been there before we decided to ride back and hike up towards the ridge near Keystone Peak.
The big elevation gain was our hike. If you don’t do this the ride is actually quite rolling and fairly flat. We climbed ~800m on this day.
