The British Columbia Kootenays in August.
Always a worthy vacation in the summer. Stretching from the Okanagan Valley in the West, to the Rocky Mountains in the East, South to the US border and North to Revelstoke. With about 40 towns to visit and over 100 riding areas it will take many vactions to ride all the trails here.
For our 10 day vacation we opted to stay near Nakusp at the Mt. Abriel campground. We used this as a base to ride Mt. Abriel and Box Canyon near New Denver. We also did an exploratory ride near Revelstoke at Joss Mt.
From Nakusp we drove to Castlegar to ride three rides there at Merry Creek, Goose Creek, and Rialto.
Since most of the trails are accessed by logging roads, we brought our Trek Powerfly E-bike as a shuttle retrievel. This allowed us to enjoy more single track riding instead of logging road climbing in the hot Kootenay sun.
From the campground, there are short easy loops great for kids, also designed for Adaptive Riders, and easy evening rides. The upper singletrack trails – Ride On – are accessed by the Turner Rd FSR and or Turn ‘Er Up Climbing trails to bypass lower Turner Rd FSR. You can make a donation to support the campground and the trails at NABS – Nakusp and Area Bike Society.
You could ride all the trails here in a day. Park at the Rosebery Railway right of way, just up from Hwy6. From there ride up the Box Lake FSR or the Up-Chuck climb and do your laps. The climb takes about 30min at an easy pace, so you can do easy one hour loops. There is also a Forest Service Campground on the south side of Box Lake if Abriel is full. This area is also maintained by NABS.
Butter Trails at Rosebery, New Denver
Easily accessed by the West Wilson Creek FSR, the first leg is a 7.7km/850m cimb to upper and lower Butter access. The next road section is a 2.3km/160m climb to Spine access and the short, worthwhile Rolling Thunder loop. We did not ride the older trails in New Denver near Idaho Peak since they have not been as actively maintained. This area is maintained by North Slocan Trails Society.
Old Hotsprings Trail starts past the Nakusp Hotsprings Campground and follows Kuskanax Creek back to Nakusp at Alexander Rd. We did a short out and back. Another way would be to get a shuttle to the hotsprings and ride back to Nakusp.
Packed and ready to go!
Mt Abriel campground. Sites 20 and higher are closer to the lake.
Upper Arrow Lake
More Arrow Lake
Lower Abriel Trails. Great for kids and families.
Mt. Abriel Ride.
We shuttled up the road and rode down Ride On. More trails are planned for this area. You can ride up the climbing trail and road to make it a loop.
https://www.trailforks.com/ridelog/view/16291851/
Ride On
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Ride On
Garrett Buehler is building Ride On and extensions.
E-Retrieve on Turn ‘Er Up and Turner Rd FSR.
Hanging on Upper Arrow Lakes.
Butter Trails at Rosebery, New Denver.
We did the Ebike retrieval for this ride, it took 40 min to ride the Ebike up this road. Not much slower than driving!
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Well signed trails
Views of Butter
Butter
Butter
Lower Butter
Lower Butter
More Lake views
Kuskanax
While not on trailforks, and historically a hiking trail used to access the hotsprings from Nakusp. This is a beautiful short out and back ride or can be made into a longer one-way ride if you can figure out a way to get back to your end point.
We also did a ride in the Box Creek area. It’s worth a short stop for quick fun well-built hits
