I woke up without a real plan, and it resulted in me getting out of bed, having breakfast while doing my diary, then going back to bed. I lay thinking for a while, about what to do today, about some life decisions. When my thought train arrived at mountain biking, I was up. I showered and repacked my van (fridge in, bike on the roof) and left the house while it was still mid-morning. I didn’t get to say goodbye to Nala, I’m sure she was just hiding somewhere. Ten minutes drive away was a trailhead to Mount Fromme. This was a suggestion from Johann’s ex-girlfriend and I’d mapped out a loop using Trailforks and her tips. At the trailhead, it was nice to get my gear on. It felt like it had been a while. As I got riding, it definitely felt like it had been a while. I climbed, and climbed, and climbed. All single track too which was great, but very rooty and rocky, so there were definitely some offs.
I started from the Braemar Park Reservoir and began my climb along Dempsey. It then cut over to St. Mary’s and on to Dreamweaver, then Skid Road. At Braden Powell, I kept pedalling and puffing until I reach executioner and STILL kept climbing along Ramble On and D’yer Mak’er. At the top of D’yer was a fireroad to get to the very top trail. I had a well-deserved Clif Bar at the road before heading up. Uphill fireroad was bliss after what I’d just done. For one, I had no balance on the bike and couldn’t position it in the corners the way I wanted to. Second, I had commitment issues. Third, every second rock or root was stopping me in my tracks. Definitely not my finest hour, but nothing bad to say about the trails. They were super-well sign posted, well-carved but not over-groomed and really not too steep in most sections.
I rode to 7th Secret, per the suggestions I’d received, which was a black diamond. It was a long one too. Lots of firm rock gardens, banked and around corners. After a while I got into the timber rails, of varying thicknesses, but most of them doable. I appreciate how much work has gone into building and maintaining these trails. A man and a trail dog passed me not long after I started the trail. He looked and sound like a local doing his usual grind and thoroughly enjoying myself. There were a couple of walk spots for me on this trail because of my confidence problem, but as I merged onto Leppard and Crinkum Crankum, I was finally finding my rhythm. Especially on Crinkum, that was a beautiful trail that still required me to be on my brakes most of the time, but it had some flow. At the conclusion of that trail, I was back out onto the fireroad, climbing up again to find some singletrack to take all the way down to the carpark. I had three options and I took the pussy one. I was tempted by “Ladies Only” because of the name, but it was double black and considering my performance, probably not right for me. “Pipeline” was also intriguing because of the trail with the same name back home in Gap Creek. But I figured, on my own, clearly out of shape, I better go for the same, but recommended by a friend, Expresso. It was pretty solid. A few bridges and the rock gardens, I was starting to feel at home on my wheels. It was all over pretty soon and I was back at the car. I downed a banana to kerb the hunger a bit and downed a lot of water to recuperate.
Van re-packed and fresh clothes on, I left the ‘burbs and headed towards Whistler, but navigated to a seaside park not far off the highway for lunch. I drove past some very, very fancy houses to get to a park at the edge of the bay. I sat on a park bench overlooking the container ships lining up to port. I was also joined by Alberto, a dog (named by me) whose owners were uninterestingly sun-tanning themselves on the rocks nearby. He thought he’d come over to take a look at my lunch. He was perfectly well behaved until I started eating, them he was howling and whimpering and carrying on. The owners eventually reigned him in, but he seemed overly disappointed that he hadn’t gotten anything out of the stranger. I enjoyed the view as I ate, watching the comings and goings of some small sail boats.
I head back to the car to continue on the Sea to Sky Highway out to Whistler. This is the most beautiful road I’ve travelled on so far. There are mountains on one side and the Pacific ocean on the other. A nice winding road through the hills with epic views of tall mountains in the distance. Even the van enjoyed it. Johann had mentioned a small waterfall hike along the way, so I when I saw a sign for Shannon Falls Provincial Park, I was getting a bit tired anyway, so pulled in to see what was what. As I walked towards the falls, I saw a sign for the Stawamus Chief. This is something Sheldan had told me about. A very steep hike with a lot of stairs that he had been wanting to do, but I was only wearing my Teva’s and thought I’d better get to Whistler before too late. I walked the short way to the falls with all of the tourists and took a photo. The falls were very tall, but not raging since it was the end of summer. As I head back, I saw the sign again for the chief and thought, “fuck it”, I’m only here once. So off I went.
My legs were a tired from my ride in the morning, but this would give them a good stretch! I walked through a bit of forest and through the carpark of the Sea to Summit Gondola to get to the trail. I wasn’t sure I was going the right way, so I asked some others coming towards me if I was on the right track and they confirmed I was. The guy was very concerned about my shoes. Fair enough comment. I was in my Teva’s and only had my handbag, not a backpack, because I didn’t want to go back to the car to get my stuff. I figured I would charge through it as fast as I could. I made it to the trailhead at 3:45pm. There was lots of warning signs saying it was not an easy hike and make sure you leave enough time and tell someone where you’re going. Greg was with me, so I was good. The elevation gain started instantly. The total trail was 2.5 km and 550 meters of up. It was a very well made trail with mostly rocks as steps but some wooden structures for the really steep bits.
I trudged through the forest keeping a steady pace. A few hundred meters in my body settled into a rhythm and I resolved to try and go as far as possible without stopping. I passed a lot of people coming back down from the mountain, which made me a bit wary of the sunlight I would have left, but pushed on. I decided to skip the First Peak because it was an out and back to get there, whereas the Second and Third Peak were right along the trail. I got to a gully near the second peak and found a ladder built into the rock on my left side. Again, warning signs, but how cool! Up I went to discover chains towards the top, then I was out. There was a pair of climbers up here and two hippies with some sort of charts they were trying to read. They were having a very deep conversation about the meaning of life I think. The view was pretty spectacular. The Chief looks down over Squamish and the ocean inlet.
Back down the ladder, I was a little confused about where the trail continued, but I saw someone coming down the other side of the gully. Turns out I had inadvertently climbed up to the first peak, instead of the second! Happy about that since I didn’t have to do the extra walking! Up the chains to the second peak, there was a bit of scrambling, all very well polished because of the traffic over time. The second peak was a little more populated with people and the view even better than before. I downed the rest of my water and when I couldn’t find the trail to get to the third peak, which is the highest of them all, I head back down the way I’d come. I went as fast as I could, passing a lot of climbers who had obviously climbed the face of the chief and were now walking down. I got back to the bottom at 5:20pm. I had a lazy walk back to the car where I took a huge amount of water and ate a banana to try and steady my hungry stomach. I ate trail mix in the car as I headed down the highway. I was happy with that little adventure and my legs weren’t suffering too much for it. The beautiful road continued as I neared Whistler. Rob’s mum, Sheilagh, lives in Creekside, so I pulled off the highway before I got to the village and found her place pretty easily because she was out the front painting her truck (it was yellow, now matt black). She was very welcoming and just after I’d arrived, everyone started getting home, including her oldest son Dave and her tenant Robbie. Dave showed me to my room which is very cozy and the rest of the house is exactly what you’d expect in a country town – beautiful wood everywhere and adhoc layout including a spiral staircase. I loved it.
I had a shower, then joining Sheilagh in the kitchen. She insisted I relax as she did some dishes. We talked about what there is to do in Whistler and how much I knew about her two other sons, Rob and Jake. She gave me some great tips about Whistler and even said I could probably go riding with her boyfriend Graham and climbing with his son Tristan. Local knowledge? Yes please! I also managed to get in touch with Dan Trees about catching up and we decided it was too hard to get together for the hike, so we’d catch up for dinner one night or something simple. Around 8:30pm, Sheilagh and I wandered over to Roland’s to get some beer, then headed back around to Graham’s place where dinner of roast potatoes, corn on the cob and chicken and venison was already on the BBQ. We chatted away about life in Whistler and after Tristan was done working on his truck, he came in and told me about his planned climbing trip to Italy to climb the Dolomites. Adding that to my list! Dinner was amazing and I was starving. Not long after, we broke up because most of the people in the room had a very early start the next day. Sheilagh stayed over at Graham’s so I walked back to the house and found it without too much difficulty. Up the spiral staircase and into bed, thoroughly tired, but the good kind of tired.