As I headed out Saturday morning with Danielle the snow covered peaks in Whistler made me doubt that a high alpine mountain bike ride was possible. I look forward to the last few mountain rides of the year. The first snow of the year, no bugs and cool temps. We got lucky somehow and found that the trail was snow free all the way up to 2200m. As we headed back down the Duffey it started to snow and you can certainly feel winter coming! Check out all the pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/patmulrooney/sets/72157594290230747/

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.

Kris Sutherland, Charlotte Klein and I left the car at around 3:30pm in 30c degree heat this past Sunday to climb from the Pemberton Valley floor . Ahead of us was nothing more than a 4000ft, 20K climb up to junction from the old Hurley River road and the Tenquille lake trail. Most sensible people, Charlotte included, would've left early in the morning to beat the heat. But Kris and I decided to hydrate and carbo load the nigh before and various bars in Vancouver. Good call! We were find specimens on that climb. While sweating more than a whole class room full of Bikram's yoga fanatics we joked about how we were hallucinating and we're about to pass out. Except not really joking:) Once we got to the top of the road climb we then had the hour long hike a bike to the trail junction, it's about 3km of hiking. Luckily the trees and the fact that it was 6:30 helped with the temperature. The descent starts after a small creek crossing and starts into a couple open glades before it gets really fast and winds you down the side of the mountain. After dropping about 2000ft you end up in some of the fastest winding single track in the sea to sky corridor! A few sandy chicanes and you're back out the car, in our case 4:45 after we started. It's amazing how quickly you can go through 4000 ft of vertical and 9km of single track descent, around 40 min with a bunch of stopping to regroup. Good times and well recommended ride! If you like your granny gear that is;-)

Kris Sutherland and Charlotte Klein descending through a slide path at the start of the descent from Tenquille Lake. Pemberton, BC.