Training Log Archive: revy

Impetus for the trip to the coast was a conference in Vancouver. Wanted to get a second run in this week - an hour on the seawall around Stanley Park (with one short cut to ensure I was not late). Ive got to say that the seawall is a pretty scenic location for a flat road run.

C • Route Choice 1

Forecast and webcams looked somewhat promising so decided to try for an afternoon ski towards Decker. Turned out to be pea soup in the alpine so ended up doing three in bounds runs higher up and then a top to bottom groomer. Snow higher up was fine - lower down very spring-like but you could ski to the village. Interested checking out the attire of the young skier/snowboarder these days...

Last ride in Pemberton - last night had talked about skiing at backcomb this morning but webcams looked cloudy so went out for one more short ride. Climbed up to Fat Tug which was double track to start then a stiff singletreck climb. Fat Tug was super fun with some good rooty tech, some small jumps and doubles. Less rock than the other side. At the bottom we added another 20 minutes by heading back to One Mile Lake and riding Pickle Surprise. Interesting to ride it after running it yesterday. Parts I thought might not have great flow were actually great. Pocket dialled 911 on this ride - whoops... first time that has ever happened.

After the failed skiing expedition still had a few hours to kill (hoping to avoid rush hour traffic in Vancouver but that didn't work out great as still had to wait to cross Lions Gate). Stopped in Squamish and starting from Alice Lake rode Rupert and Credit Line. A lot wetter here than in Pemberton - made me appreciate just how good the conditions were there. Skipped the super steep rock face on Rupert but managed to ride the rock wall right hand turn into a bridge lower down. On credit line did not manage to clean the tech climb and skipped the bigger rock drop.

Solo run from town to one mile lake to check out the the trails that we didn't bike yesterday - Nairn one mile, tower of power, k2, pickle surprise. Hip was a little sore from al the biking yesterday but not limiting. Left knee a little sore on the descents - overall a good run though. Tower of power looks like it would be fun when dry and K2 could be ridden backwards north to south with only the first bit being a push.

So far so good with the weather as though the skis looked threatening at times today it never really did more than sprinkle a few drops. Afternoon ride with CO. Back up nimby - a little less oomph in the legs today so less big ringing. It goes on forever as it took keeps us over an hour to get to the let it go junction. Still a fun climb the second time though. It certainly gives you a lot of reprieves. A few times as I stopped to let CO catch up I'd see him just below but then would wait a few minutes as the trail looped way to the side.

After nimby headed over to overnight sensation. Great trail. A bit differ not than what I expected but in a good way. I thought it would be thicker forest with steep roots drops but lots of fast flow with periodic rock features and great valley views. Then into mission impossible. At the bottom I realized I had lost my camera so backtracked up the road and then the bottom of overnight before finding it. Luckily it fell out on dirt rather than rock section so appears ok. This made the ride a little longer than planned but gave u some the benefit of repeating a section on overnight that we hadn't cleaned the first time and also to ride blood, sweat and fear which was a good steep black trail. Dirt is perfect as some of th steeps would get more interesting when loose. Another good day of riding.

From skiing to biking... forecast was for increasing cloud through the day so was surprised to wake up and find that it had rained what seemed like a fair bit. Could see patches of blue sky though and in the end was a pretty nice day for biking with a mix of sun and cloud though cool (12 degrees) although never felt cold. Trails were dry for the most part and in great riding shape. Rode up happy/Waco/nimby/let it go. Such a nice climb that doesn't seem to get boring. Felt pretty good and rode most of it in my big ring. The last section reminded me of some whistler trails due to the vegetation though that's makes sense as at that point you are about six hundred meters above Pemberton with different climate.

Tried to ride a bit of fifty but too much snow - only spot we encountered snow. Skipped overnight and did max pains/back pains instead. Super fun with lots of fast flow. Then over to the mosquito lake trails - lots of punchy and techs climbs there. No Err was really fun as was the upper part of cream puff. Continued on the race course rather than going further down cream puff. Finished with a climb up the FSR and a last descent down Hawaii which had some nice steep bermed corners.

Some bike issues on the ride - dropper started failing (think the seals are gone) so threw the collar on and left it up. Dropped the whole seat a few times on longer descents but also rode a lot with the seat up - this certainly made some of the rock drops a little trickier. Also managed to break my cassette pedalling up a rock slab (likely in too hard a gear). Luckily the two broken rings were in the middle so still had the three easiest gears o the cassette. Just a little noisy as the broken parts rattled around.

After a lunch break the weather was still good so we decided that might as well take advantage of it as who knows what tomorrow will bring so headed out for ride #2 at the One Mile trails. Started with the climbing trail into pioneer etc then the whole lumpy's loop. Very fun descending - first descent was new school tech while the second one had lots of nice rock slabs. Legs were tired on the climbs though and a lot more granny gear climbing. Nice views on the lumpy trail. Good area - worth a return.

Snow gone from front yard.

Previous years to make it easier to compare…

Mar 29/16
Apr 10/15
Apr 28/14
Apr 9/13
Apr 21/12
May 4/11
Mar 23/10
Apr 22/09
Apr 25/08

Ski touring off the Duffey with CO - was supposed to clear a bit later in the day but wasn't sure how long that would take so waffled a bit on perhaps going to blackcomb instead. Stuck with the original plan though leaving a little later than originally planned which was Mt Matier on the Duffey. It is a bit of a flat trek to get to Keith's Hut. Once there we climbed more steadily eventually gaining the anniversary glacier. Weather was quite variable with occasional decent visibility but frequent snow squalls. It never got really bad and given the forecast clearing trend we kept moving higher. Topped out a few hundred meters below the summit of mt matier. Had thoughts of boot packing to the top and possibly skiing the NW face but given the variable visibility gave it a miss. Of course once we skied down the sun came out in full force. Oh well at least we had good light for the ski down the glacier. The top of the mountain was in clouds again a half hour later so we still would have been in the same poor visibility boat. The run down was actually quite nice. The top five hundred meters had ankle deep powder and then lower down the few cm of fresh on the warmish crust skied rthe ally nicely. Good turns for about 1000 vertical. Ski out was not too bad - got some upper body work in due to double poling. Some fun ski out sections at times. Lots of skiing to explore off the Duffey and might be worth a mid winter trip to check it out.


Coomback 10
Hi5 22
Megawatt 7
Convert 13
Aspect 2
Tonic 5

Road trip with CO to Pemberton. Weather forecast is a bit unsettled and then around some other ideas for places to go but in the end decided to stick with the original plan and make the most of it. Today was a driving day with a stop in Kamloops to mountain bike. Weather worsened a little while we were riding and had a few short showers but otherwise acceptable riding weather. The showers did make a few of the Pineview trails greasy.

We started at Kenna Cartwright where we hit most of the better Singletrack. It seemed like we rode a lot of stuff in the wrong direction - kept seeing a local guy riding the other way and definitely had some climbs that would be better descents. For future reference Deer Run is better west to east, and the western loop is best clockwise. Overall found the trails to be good for a first ride of the year but nothing amazing which was my previous recollection of them. After a couple hours rode over to pineview for an extra loop. Unfortunately the best trails there are closed for grazing but did a nice climb up switch it up and rode down a new trail called beer run which was a little more technical. I realized at this point that I had been riding with my fork in climb mode all day - doh.

Nice run with CO on the lower Begbie Bench trails. Only a few snow patches and some mud to deal with but otherwise trails were good to go. 50min loop with the dog then back on the upper trails. Felt good - no knee pain. Time went by fast chatting with CO.