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-   -   Ride Report with pics Chilliwack River Valley (https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=1173421)

Happy Feet 05-19-19 12:40 PM

Ride Report with pics Chilliwack River Valley
 
Went on a fun and epic (can we still use that word?) ride yesterday with my friend Max.

Without knowing it, we both had been thinking of doing this same valley but from different angles. My original plan was to ride up the east side of the Chilliwack River Valley on gravel FSR roads. Max's idea was to ride up the west side on gravel and a section of the Trans Canada Trail. We mentioned this to each other at a social function on Friday and wound up doing both on Saturday!

I parked at the base of Chilliwack Lake Road, which is paved and runs up the whole valley for 40 km's and then rode 6 km's around to the next valley over to the starting point. Max rode 10km's up from the town of Chilliwack to our meet up at the water parks in Cultus Lake, which lies at the bottom of the Columbia Valley.

From there we headed east for a short steep climb up and over the ridge line between the Columbia and Chilliwack River valleys and then began heading south on great gravel roads up to Tamihi Creek, a staging area for river rafting and off roaders.

A steep downhill section into the Chilliwack Valley. Max had the advantage on groomed but my 26'r with suspension and fatter tires paid off in stuff like this.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...e3229be6_b.jpg


Some groomed gravel towards Tamihi
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...9b632e00_b.jpg


Tamahi Creek
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...a2d4673b_b.jpg


After Tamahi we followed an obscure and almost non existent portion of the Trans Canada Trail (TCT). This section was a lot of fun from an adventure perspective as it involved some singletrack, bike pushing/carrying, getting stung but tons of stinging nettles and spots of bog where our bikes sank up to the axles. It looked like we were the first through that year.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...433563fb_b.jpg


Hah ha! Max forgot to unclip. I laughed but blame genetics as I was born without the sympathy gene.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...d6c94625_b.jpg


Things are getting funky!
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...1eb6b912_b.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...93dcabff_b.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...139dc40d_b.jpg


We crossed this washout, had a drink and after about 10km's or so of trail then popped back out onto the pavement further up the valley.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...38d11c75_b.jpg


To be continued next post...

Happy Feet 05-19-19 12:52 PM

After about 10km of pavement up to the Ford Mountain turnoff we crossed the river and started back down the valley on more gravel FSR's

A panorama of the Chilliwack river near Chipmunk Creek.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...0dfd99a7_b.jpg


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...858f3fc5_b.jpg


This road goes to the Chipmunk Creek Recreation site where there are some caves (closed) and then climbs high up above the valley floor below.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...18d19b89_b.jpg


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...be8080e4_b.jpg


A view from the top of the big grind. We still have to go down to the river below and then out past the top right of the picture.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...6b923b22_b.jpg



All told there was about 70-75 km's of riding (including getting to the meet point) with 1200m's of elevation gain for 7 hours of sustained gravel/trail without stopping. The riding and scenery was so awesome we didn't even really feel tired (except for the big grind maybe) and was way better than either of our original plans.

Max is riding a Giant something with 700 x 32 Marathons and I'm on an old school 26 x 2.35 mtb with a cheap low travel suspension fork.

The route:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...8555cbdc_b.jpg

Hondo Gravel 05-19-19 03:11 PM

Great report! I like BC when I visited there many moons ago (2002) took me a while to start judging distance and speed in kilometers. Anyways you all had a good ride.

Gconan 05-19-19 08:21 PM

Great pics! Inspiring!


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