Crack of 8am, well maybe slightly after 8 as Dale reminded us we ferried out to the middle of Tyaughton Lake in the trusty Tyax Air Beaver float plane. It's been 2 years so I've done a float plane drop in the Chilcotins. The plane was as I remembered but now has an iPod for your in flight pleasure as you cruise through the chilcotions.

The first descent out of Deer Pass was as epic as I remembered it.Fast, narrow and goes as far as the eye can see from the top. Unfortunately Jordan's camera batteries died at the top of the pass, so the rest of the trip's photos are from my trusty little Kodak but it should be entertaining for you.

The climb up Deer Pass was a bit more than we had expected. After choking down a bagel around noon, we had a 2000 ft vertical climb climb up to the top of the pass. It was mostly pushing and hike-a-bike as it was too steep to climb, but fortunately it was late enough in the season that the bugs weren't a problem.

The descent was EPICAL fast and open up top, with a couple marmot sightings to add to the excitement. The trail changed from alpine sandy corners to steep twisty single track through the forest and non stop for the whole 2000 ft, it was awesome. Other than my brakes squealing I could hear hooting from Jordan, Kris and Charlotte all close behind me.

From there it was a race against the sun through Humming Bird and Trigger Lakes and then down the Gun Creek low trail to save the climb up to Spruce Lake. At this point we only stopped 2 more times to refill our water bottles and to fix Jordan's second flat. Charlotte and Kris took off ahead, but we caught up to them shortly after as they were waiting on the road because they just saw a grizzly bear tromp by. We waited as a group, yelled a bunch and then cruised up the road back to camp.

Around 10pm we rolled back into the camp, hooting and hollering, and went straight for the Kokanee and Miss Vickies potatoe chips! A great way to end an 11 hour epic ride in the Chilcotins.  Kris and I were both raving about how well our Blurrs' handled all of the terrain descending and climbing the rough single track like nothing else.  For the record Kris was rocking the Blurr LT and I'm representin' by DH background with the Blurr 4X.

More Photos on Flickr.

technorati tags:chilcotin, bike, mountainbike, crosscountry, epic, tyax, sprucelake, lornalake, warnerlake, tyaughton, floatplane

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