Rider: Danielle Balik                             Photo: Pat Mulrooney  

Dale from Tyax Air called me to offer a flight on his last day of the year. It was the perfect opportunity to get one last ride in before the snow hit. The plan was to ride out from Warner lake but with the super cold temps Dale couldnt get the ice off the wings until the air temperature rose to at least -1 deg C. We ended up flying out at 10:00am so we got put down on Spruce lake. The entire day the was super cold and didnt rise above -5 deg C. The ride took us up and over Windy Pass and through Eldorado Basin with a decent down "The Extra Pleasure Zone".  

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