A Ride in the Chilliwack Valley
July 3rd 2006
and we thought only the bible could thump you here!
We park at the bottom of the FSR we are to climb.
Next time I believe we will take the longer road that you can actually pedal up in middle ring.
Photos courtesy of Pat Mulrooney and Sharon Bader.
We start the climb. Innocuous enough, views are ok. It's a pretty warm day! Thankfully this ride is mostly in the shade!
Doesn't make cooling off in the snow-melt waterfall any less enticing!
Part way up the climb we get a taste of views to come!
The side of the road is giving us quite the colorful show of alpine flowers!
Despite Pat's lens... this stretch of road is steep!
Once done the climb... We find the Hike a Bike!
About 20-30 minutes later and leaving a trail of flesh on the branches we passed by
we get to the top and get some views! Looking North East towards Cheam and Lady. Compare this view to Oct!
The trail is now a ribbon of singletrack on the ridge!
Here I'm checking out the backside of the ridge! Look! There's a trail down there! Really!
Looking far WEST you can make out Golden Ears, Judge Howay and Robbie Reid. In the far far distance is the McBride Range going all the way to Whistler - far to the NW
The flowers were prime right now! The snow capped mountains in the back made for some great contrast!
The ridge consists of rolling knolls offering some steep little descents along the way. Must be that lens making my arms look so pumped...
Compare to Oct!
The far knoll is where we're going!
The view point
Taking a break and taking in the amazing views!
Chilliwack Valley - Looking West towards Cultus Lake and the Fraser River
A bigger view looking South and West
More descents of rocky knolls! You can see Mt. Baker on the right of the picture.
Again looking along the ridge towards Chilliwack
Through the alpine flowers!
Down hills
The final descent is pretty steep and fast so we didn't take any pictures. The last stretch back on the road seemed to take its toll on these guys!
Only way to fix that is to rehydrate by the river after some took a refreshing dip.
The elevation profile over distance. Total elevation climbed was 1620m
We decided to take
the less steep access to the Ridge. Chipmunk FSR. The road is about 16km, we
climb the same amount of elevation, the road ride back is 5km longer. BUT you
can actually climb most of this road! The hike a bikes are fewer and you end
up at the same spot!
The viewpoint looking North East. This is essentially the top of the climb/hike a bike. 4 hours. The ribbon of alder you see to the left of kris' head was our route.
View towards Slesse
The fall colours of Red and Brown are a stark contrast to the Alpine flowers of July!
The group! Kris, Jon, Lee, Cory, Trevor and Brian
Kris and Cory with Mt. Baker in the background
What a difference a season makes!