REVELSTOKE/CROWFOOT/VALEMONT ‘95
During my second season of riding, I decided to go to the mountains with a group of friends that I usually ride with around home. They like to go in March, when the weather is warmer and the skies are clearer. There were six of us in all – Richard Hammond & I bunked together, and traveling with us was Trent & Deb Danson, and John Hall & Nancy Howatt.
MACHINE SET UP
I was riding my Mach 1 that year, and installed 21 - 1 ¼"full-length plastic paddles. I say full length because I have seen others cut 1/3 of the paddle off and install them in a staggered pattern. I tried this in 1996, and it didn’t work very good for me.
In addition, I also installed a set of 283 ramps and lighter pins in the primary. In the carburetors, I installed 340 & 330 mains, a # 45 pilot, and a leaner needle jet (AA-1). I didn’t remove the plastic tunnel protectors from the heat exchangers, but was forced to on my first ride up the mountain.
Our first destination was Revelstoke, B.C. The trip took about 12 hours. Monday morning we got up and ate around 8:00 am, and then everyone except Richard and I headed out to the parking lot to jet their machines. We met some Americans from Michigan in the parking lot who were on a tour package. They seemed a little taken aback to see the girls in our group changing their own jets.
On our way out to Boulder Mountain, we met up with a friend, Darcy Jenkins, from Fort McMurray who was now living and working at a snowmobile shop in Revelstoke. He took some time off from work to ride with us. It isn’t very difficult to convince a local to leave work and go sledding when you are in the high country.
We headed west on the Trans Canada highway for a couple of miles, until we came upon the staging area for Boulder Mountain. There weren’t many trucks parked in the parking lot, and it was easy to see why – There was a very low ceiling, and a light mist was falling. Nevertheless, we were on our holidays and we were going up the mountain, with hopes that perhaps we might rise above the clouds.
As we started up the trail, we were careful not to over rev our engines, which were jetted about six sizes on the lean side, when I quickly discovered one of the caveats of mountain riding, rough trails. If you have never experienced a hogged out logging road, I fear that words would not do it justice, so I recommend that you go and see for yourself. Enough said, you will see what I mean.
I immediately noticed a rubbing/grinding/gnashing noise coming from the Mach 1 running train, somewhere associated with the tunnel. It was hard to pinpoint exactly what was happening, because I was bottoming out ever 4 feet or so, and this was preventing me from going faster than 10 miles an hour. This was not what I thought of when the idea of mountain riding was first suggested. After about a mile of this, I pulled over to see just what could be causing these horrible noises. The answer was simple, I had not removed the stock plastic protectors from the heat exchangers in the tunnel and every time the suspension was compressed, the paddles would make contact. I quickly removed them and stuck them in the snow off the side of the trail like a set of crossed skis, so that I could find them when I came back down. It is hard to believe that so much noise could be coming from those little pieces of plastic. I still continued to bottom out, but most of it was just the skid frame and not the tunnel.
The temperature was dropping as we went further and further up the mountain, and the light mist had now turned to thick fog. I’m glad we had Darcy with us as a guide. Eventually the fog turned into big snow flakes, however the sky was still overcast, a condition that would haunt us as long as we stayed in Revelstoke. As we continued up the trail, we encountered the groomer heading down hill, doing his thing. We let him by, and then enjoyed a smooth trail for the rest of the way up to the cabin. I noticed that the snow was getting deeper and more powdery at this point. The last little stretch to the cabin is flat, and we got a chance to give the machines a little blast to clean out the carbon. This is when I noticed that your top speed is no longer what it once was, thanks to the paddles. They take too much bite and create a lot of drag.
Traveling the last mile was like going through a wormhole, the conditions changed drastically. Lots of powder. Trees surround the warming cabin at Boulder, and there is a huge meadow in front of it, which some people tell me is a small lake, and some people tell me it isn’t. I don’t know myself, but it was full of deep snow and I decided that I was going to put the Mach 1 and its 121" paddled track to the test. To my surprise, the paddles really helped! All I had to do was give it a good handful of throttle, and away we went. It was at this point that I decided I was ready for some hill climbing.
On the side of the lake/meadow opposite the cabin, I observed what appeared to be some unmarked trails meandering through the light brush into the trees. The rest of the group had stopped over at the cabin and were having a smoke while I played around, so I decided to do a little exploring. There definitely was a trail there, but it had not been traveled for some time, and there were a couple of feet of snow on it, so I went exploring. As I navigated through the serpentine course, the trees were becoming more frequent and bigger, and it wasn’t long before I was committed to follow it to the end in order to turn around. I hadn’t gone very far, only about half a kilometer when all of a sudden I came upon a large hill going up at about a 40-degree angle. The hill was probably about 180 feet in length, and ended with a short vertical ascent over a cornice to get to the top. I had stumbled into the open end of a chute, and the further I went up it, the more difficult it became to turn around. My front bumper was plowing under the snow, but I figured I could make it if I came onto her hard.
Well, I got about half ways up the hill and buried the machine up to the handlebars. I took a quick inventory of my situation and realized I could be in trouble, nobody knew where I was, and I was buried on a hill hidden in the forest, off the beaten path. There was no sense in calling to the others, as I was a little bit too far away, and machines were continuously passing back and forth down by the meadow/lake. I started to dig a trough around my machine, and the more I dug, the more I realized how big a job this was going to be. Not only did I have to dig the machine free, but I also had to clear a much larger area so that I could wrestle the pig around until it was facing down hill. Seeing as how I was alone, the lift was going to be a difficult one, and I needed to remove lots of snow. Bear in mind that when you get stuck, your track digs a hole and sinks until the running boards bottom out. You must lift your machine up and out of this hole before you can think of turning it around. The thin air was also a factor, as I found it hard to catch my breath, not to mention the sweat pouring off of me. Lots of breaks were in order.
After about 15 minutes, I was on the verge of blacking out when I heard a sweet sound. Coming up the very same trail I had just so foolishly followed was the long track XLT of Richard, my partner! He never looked so good as he did at that moment when he pulled up beside me and asked me if I needed a hand. The two of us made short work of excavating both of the machines, and as quick as that, I was back on the lake/meadow, no smarter than I was 30 minutes ago. I still had not learned my lesson.
Back at the cabin, a large number of machines had arrived, mostly from tour groups, and I found the rest of our group standing around the XLT of Trent, with the hood up. Darcy was trying to fix a bad bog in the carbs, and the rest of the gang were having a smoke and offering free advice. Darcy worked for a couple of hours on it, only to discover that the problem was caused by the stepped washer between the mainjet and the needle jet, Trent had installed it upside down when he rejetted. It is hard to believe that the motor would run so poorly just because this piece was inverted. We didn’t get an early start that day, and combined with the trouble Trent had, the group wanted to call it a day. Hope the weather clears tomorrow.
As you can see in the photo, the cabin is level with the ground, but in fact it is built on 15 – 20 foot stilts to compensate for the snow accumulation. Trents’ XLT is on the right with the hood up. Nancy is in the middle wearing red & black, and Richard is off to the left, with the white shoulders.
Yeah, she's in there allright. I had to learn to get used to this.
Johnny's showing us some stuff here, Darcy and I aren't really sure what. Could be some new type of body english for mountain riding.
Tuesday morning we awoke to more clouds and light drizzle. Darcy wouldn’t be riding with us today. We discussed whether we should leave the Revelstoke area or try our luck on Boulder Mountain again. Not wanting to lose a complete day to traveling, we decided to give it another go.
As we arrived at the parking area at Boulder, I couldn’t help but notice that the snow was gone, and today we would be unloading the machines and donning our snowmobile suits in the mud. I decided not to wear any gloves on our ascent to the alpine, I felt the steady rain would only make them wet, so I wrapped them in a plastic shopping bag and drove up the mountain barehanded, with the handwarmers on. It was really quite bearable. At about ¾ of the way up, the rain stopped, but it was obvious that we would not escape the clouds today.
Once we arrived at the cabin, the wind picked up considerably, and the visibility was worse than the day before. Not many riders were on the mountain today, but the main reason was probably because it was a weekday. The day before, I talked briefly with Mark Shaede, who runs Revelstoke Snowmobile Tours, and offers a guiding service. He was driving a new ’95 Summit 670, and he was up on the mountain today just riding alone. The hill was pretty much socked in, we were actually in the cloud, and everyone mostly sat in the cabin and told stories around the wood stove. I was talking to Mark outside, and he asked if we were interested in seeing some riding areas further up the mountain. Of course I said yes, and asked the rest of the group if they wanted to come along. Everyone was game, including a few others who were not in our group, but willing just the same.
Mark led us up a trail that we had explored a little bit the previous day, heading towards the summit. We went about 1 or 2 kilometers and stopped to make sure we were all together. It was at this first stop that I realized just how bad the wind was blowing, now that we were getting above the cover of the thick forest. Thirteen of us started out but five decided to turn around and go back down to the cabin. That left 8 of us. The trail took us up about 3 or 4 more kilometers to where the wind was really howling, blowing snow and everything. At this point, the rest of my friends decided that the conditions were getting inhospitable, so they turned around. This left 3 of us, Mark on his summit, me on the Mach 1 and another fellow from Victoria, whose name I forgot. He was riding a Yamaha Phazer with a long track and huge ski skins that must have been 5 or 6 inches wide. We were stopped on the top of a small hill overlooking some rolling meadows, or at least that is what Mark told me. Visibility was down to about 2 feet. Mark said that we were about to go over a short vertical drop off, but not to worry, the transition at the bottom was smooth. He gave the Summit a little throttle and disappeared right before our eyes. I looked at the Phazer rider, he looked at me, and we both leaned forward to see just how steep this hill was. All of a sudden, we saw Marks’ silouhette reappear about 25’ below us, and he was now back on level ground and driving away from our location. We looked at each other again, and both hesitated. I figured we had better hurry up or else we would loose him in the weather, so off I went, into the twilight zone. The drop was a bit of a thrill, mostly because I was doing it blind. Mark hadn't lied, the landing was easy. Once I hit the meadow, the riding was fun, nice rolling hills and deep snow. It was at this time I realized just how good a rider Mark was, he was carving nice S turns and tipping the machine on its side as he was doing so. My buddy on the Yamaha was a pretty decent rider too, and the machine he was on was perfect for the conditions, something I didn’t recognize at first. I guess now would be a good time to mention that I did not have a mountain bar installed, just the low profile handlebars you need for hunkering down behind the windscreen on a frozen lake. On top of that, I was lousy too. This type of riding is nothing like we do back home. They both noticed that I was putting on a goon show, getting stuck and not in control of where I wanted to go. The meadows were leading downhill, towards some trees, but there were some small ravines appearing, creating forks in my path that I wouldn’t be able to get out of once I entered one. Mark led the Yamaha rider over to the right, and of course I was getting sucked into the left. The snow was really deep here, so you couldn’t just decided to drive over there, you had to carve a nice turn to do it. I couldn't get the great whale to turn around, the ravine was too narrow and the snow was too deep, so I kept on, hoping the terrain would give me a break up ahead. This doesn’t usually happen in the mountains, and now I was trying to pick my way between trees, which were no farther apart than my ski stance. To help matters, Mark was in a small valley that was veering to the right and had lost visual contact with me, and I was being forced to the left, all the while going down down down…
The guy on the Phazer was a little bit behind us and saw what I was doing, and he managed to get over into my ravine and follow me, trying to reel me in. I eventually came to rest against an evergreen, and figured that this was it, no place to go. We scouted around a bit and what we had to do was dig out the machine and turn it 90 degrees to the right, and then beat the snow down by walking on it so that I could get some momentum and start moving again. It is good to have a friend when you are in this situation, and I can’t thank that guy enough for following me and helping me out. I got the big ski-doo moving again, but now I was sidehilling, and I quickly found out that I wasn’t good at that either. We replayed this scenario about 6 or 7 more times, trying to guess which way was the right way through the trees. We carried on with this jiggy-jiggy-pull- pull nonsense for about 40 minutes. I was leading, not because I was a great leader, but because we were boondocking through such heavily wooded area, that he couldn’t get by me. My orientation was kind of messed up and I was so tired that I was having difficulty distinguishing which way the hill was sloping, when all of a sudden STOP!
The tip of my right ski was hanging over a ledge that was about 30 foot down and almost vertical. The good news was that this was another chute, but it was much bigger and there were fewer trees in it. It looked familiar too. I assessed the situation and it was apparent that I was going to go over the ledge right there at that spot, I had no other options. My nose was angled downhill, I was between some 2" trees, almost stuck in the deep snow, and too tired to do anything anyways. Then a warm feeling came over me when I realized that this was the same chute I was trying to go up yesterday, I was perched on the side of it and the part I was trying to ascend was off to my right. It meant that a trail back to the cabin was only 30 feet away! Oh yeah, I’m going over for sure, I don’t care how big a drop there is.
I started the 670 on the 17th pull, and got both feet firmly planted on the footrests, exactly where I needed them. I grabbed a pretty big handful of throttle and sort of leaped out and away from the ledge. Once I was in the air, I did a quick mid air correction, and the deep snow in the landing area did the rest for me. My newest best buddy on the Yamaha did something similar, and we were back at the cabin in less than 2 minutes.
Everyone knew we were lost, and Mark had gone back up the roundabout way to look for us. We retold the story to everyone, only my driving wasn’t my fault in this version, and the ledge was much higher than 30 feet. We headed down shortly after that, the weather wasn’t getting any better and we were going to go to the Shuswap area that night. Mark invited us to stop off at the lounge at Peaks Lodge, which was about ½ a mile from the parking lot further west on the Trans Canada highway. We all blew in there and found the Americans from Michigan we met the day earlier. They had shut down early today too. We had a quick bowl of chili and a beer, and we headed off to Sicamous.
John was driving his old Indy 650 with 2" paddles and was in need of some pilot jets, so the first thing we did Wednesday morning was to head south to Mara Lake where we found Backus Racing, a Polaris dealership. As soon as I laid my eyes on a mountain bar I grabbed it off the rack and rushed outside to put it on the Mach 1 ton. Everett Backus is the owner and a great guy. He let me use his shop tools and air compressor to install the mountain bar. Visit this shop if you are in the area, he knows his stuff and offers good advice on setting up your clutches and carbs for the high altitudes.
From there we got back on the Trans Canada and continued west past Sorrento. Our destination was the north shore of the Shuswap Lake to a small town called Celista. This is where you will find Crowfoot Mountain, which turned out to be my favorite mountain to ride. The trail up the hill is about 10 kilometers long and a little bit steep in places. As you get near the alpine, you come to a fork. Both trails take you to approximately the same place, but the one on the left takes you up the face, a long steep climb that ends at the chalet. I have never had any trouble climbing the face, but you must take a bit of a run, and once you commit, you have to keep going.
The first day started late because of our detour to Mara Lake. We checked out the chalet and played around a little, but it was getting late so we decided to get a hotel and hit the hill hard tomorrow. The good news is that the cloud cover was breaking up, and the temperature was just about ideal, right about –10C.
Thursday morning we awoke in Chase, a small town on the Trans Canada highway just west of the Shuswap Lake. In fact, it is right on the Little Shuswap Lake. We had breakfast at the Family Restaurant in Scotch Creek, a place I recommend. The machines were gassed up and we took off for a day of riding. The weather was co operating finally, we had a mix of sun and clouds, but it was a low ceiling and we would pass on up through them. We met up with some locals on the hill, Lou & his wife Betty. They live about ½ a mile from the staging area, right at the bottom of the mountain. John and Nancy had been at this hill before, but weren’t too sure where they were going, so we asked Lou where the look out was. He pointed us in the right direction and we found it pretty quick. The lookout is an old, small shed on the very peak of a mountain. Once there you get a great view in all directions, however one side is a sheer drop off of about 300 feet. This is not immediately obvious, because the wind forms a huge cornice that hangs over. My first time there I walked over to where I thought the edge might be so that I could get a view of the mountain lake below. All of a sudden another rider who we didn’t know starts yelling at me like a madman to come back. Evidently, I walked out on this cornice with nothing supporting my weight except the interlocking snowflakes. See the photo below.
We got a lot of great riding in that day. This hill sees very little traffic, it is off of the beaten path, and therefore you can always find fresh powder to play in. I felt that the powder would be better used to get stuck in, and the Mach 1 ton did not fail me. Trent always seemed to be near me when I got stuck, so he was obliged to lend a hand, the golden rule of mountain riding.
Friday morning was sunny and bright. Richard and I were up and on the road ahead of the rest of the group and got to the staging area first. When John arrived, he said he met a guy at the gas station with an Arctic Cat and asked him how to get to Grizzly Mountain from Crowfoot. The guy replied that he was going there and he would show us. We were introduced to Gary, who lives in nearby Kamloops. He was riding a 580 powder special, and was very familiar with the mountain. He led us to all of the play areas on Crowfoot, and after a few hours of riding we headed over to Grizzly Mountain. In order to get to Grizzly, you must first come down off of Crowfoot, and then climb up Grizzly. This in itself was easy enough, the mountains are separated by a small stream which has been long since buried deep beneath the snow. The descent from Crowfoot is reasonably free of trees, and most of the ascent up Grizzly is bare until you get near the top. The problem is that the trail down Crowfoot is really steep and long, and Deb is terrified about going down big hills. We forced her to go down, and there were no incidents, so we thought the worst was over. The problem is that the climb up Grizzly was completely covered in deep snow, and we were ill prepared with our short track machines.
As we began to negotiate the Grizzly side, Deb tipped her Polaris 500 over on its side. She doesn’t lean over to counterbalance off cambers, and as a result tips over. The first time this happened, I was right behind her and she was still straddling the seat as she lay on her side. Fearing she may have injured her leg or ankle, I lept off the Mach and rushed up to her.
"Are you o.k." I asked?
‘Oh yeah, no problem," she sang back to me, in a matter of fact tone. "Just help get this machine off me".
I noticed that her husband Trent was still sitting on his machine watching, and he was less concerned than Deb was. At this point we were still in a section of rolling hills and had not yet begun the ascent. We pressed on, slowly working our way around the uneven piles of wind blown drifts when not 100 yards further along she fell over again.
"Deb, try leaning into the hill" I offered as I lifted the Polaris off of her again.
"I am!" she replied.
Another 100 yards brought another flop, and this time Trent and I both picked the machine up off her. I was beginning to see a pattern here. Oh well, at least it wasn’t me this time. She tipped over a couple more times, and then we started to go up. It wasn’t nearly as steep as coming down Crowfoot, but the snow was deep and we had to maneuver around obstacles. It started to get ugly.
Gary had no problems, that Arctic Cat curved and swerved and floated its way up, but the rest of us didn’t find it so easy, especially RDJ on the Mach 1 ton. The weight of the machine would not let me pick and hold a precise line, and this resulted in losing momentum and burying the big pig. This may be hard to believe, but I was having the time of my life anyways.
We did eventually get up to the top of Grizzly, and found that there is another cabin up there too, but much smaller.
The cabin at Grizzly mountain. Gary is the guy on the left. At this point, he is wondering what he did wrong to deserve us. He was a good sport about it all, and thinks everyone from Alberta is insane.
We rode the hills at Grizzly for a couple of hours. There are some pretty serious hills on this mountain. We headed back towards Crowfoot later in the afternoon, and by now the sun was really cooking. We were freeriding in the meadows between clusters of trees going kind of slow, just playing. I was leading with Nancy following close behind on her XCR 600, and Trent was behind her. I was circling around a treewell, keeping away from the edge when all of a sudden the trail in front of me was reduced to about 14" wide. Another treewell was overlapping the one I was turning around. Fearing that my skis would drop down into one or the other, I gassed it and wheelied slightly, carrying both skis over the deep holes. I looked over my shoulder in time to see that Nancy was not paying close attention, and she got sucked into the one on her left. By the time I circled around, there was Trent, on top of Nancy.
Trent and Nancy are in the hole, while John and Gary size up the situation. I wish I knew what Gary was muttering under his breath about now.
The goon show I had put on earlier was forgotten at this point. Getting these two out of the hole would be child’s play compared to what we did earlier this morning.
Later that evening, we had dinner at the Silver Fox Bistro in Chase. There we discovered "moo bones", giant ribs for $1 each. You're packing your arteries with tallow, but after a day of carrying snowmobiles up a mountain, who cares? It was there that Deb got her nickname, which every one now calls her. "TIPPER"
Saturday would be our last day at Crowfoot, we had reservations for Valemont that night. The sky was overcast, but the clouds were quite high, so we knew we wouldn't have to ride in them. The groomer hadn't been working the last few days, and the trail was getting full of bomb craters. Kind of like the trails back home, only vertical. Half way up the trail, we met head on with the groomer, how's that for service?
The hill was pretty empty that day. For some reason, Gary was unable to ride with us today. I guess you shouldn't complain just because you have the whole mountain to yourself. We decided to cut the day a little short in order to drive to Valemont. We signed our names in the guest book in the cabin and headed out to play in some nearby meadows. A couple of miles of virgin powder in rolling hills, with some small groves of trees thrown in just to give contrast, not unlike the photo above at the treewell. Richard and I headed towards the east, doing some nice S turns, really getting into this mountain riding technique. We were no further than 75 feet apart, when one of those tree groves kind of came between us, forcing Richard left and me right. It was a fair size clump, maybe 50' diameter, so I figured I would meet up with him on the other side. Or so I thought. Richard was forced even further left, and my side never did open up again. What had split us was the point of a small forest, and while Richard kind of made a long and round about U turn, I followed the edge of the trees, thinking that we would meet again somewhere. Eventually, the trees got thicker and thicker, until I was riding a narrow trail. Of course, once the trail got narrow, it started to go down. And down. And down. Turning around was not an option at this time, I needed some room to do a big turn. And then I suddenly dropped about 8 or 9 feet down. There wasn't any problem hanging on, the snow is so deep you just kind of sluff your way down. The problem lies in going back up, with very little run at it. Now I was no longer looking to make a U-turn, I hoped that I would come out of the trees somewhere else. I came upon a very small opening, about 80' wide by 100' long, with a really big hill (up) on my left, but this was the end. I could either go back, or try to climb this monstrous hill that bordered the opening. It was a whopper, no doubt about it, but maybe the snow was set up enough for me to climb it, because the Mach 1 Ton had climbed some pretty good hills the last few days when there was some traction available. Only one way to find out. I made a couple of easy approaches towards the hill, I just wanted to pack down the snow so I could get a good run. I then lined my self up, with the back of the tunnel in the trees (every inch counts) and came onto her like she was a rented machine. I had about 80', and the throttle was glued to the handlebar for every foot of it. I was flying, but I was afraid to look down at the speedo, because the transition was quickly approaching, and I was determined not to spend the night on this mountain.
I didn't make it, and I saw no reason to try again, 1/4 of the way up a 200' hill would not distinguish me in the annals of hill climbing.
Lets see now, just what is my situation: I'm alone, I'm stuck, I'm wet, I'm lost, nobody knows where I went, as a matter of fact none of us have ever been in this area before, I am the only one in our group who knows it exists. It was hard to believe that I could place myself in this position twice in less than a week.
Getting myself unstuck wouldn't be a problem, the hill was so vertical that I only had to tug the skis around and then the bulk of the Mach and gravity would do the rest. That still didn't get me home. So, faced with very few options, I decided to go out the way I came in. I got stuck a couple of times as I was weaving between the trees, and I was still on mostly flat ground. I saw the hill ahead through the trees, and carried as much speed as I could. Uummmmpphhh. Buried again. Now things were getting serious. The hill I was trying to get up was completely covered in a big snowdrift. I collapsed it when I came down, and now that I was trying to go up it, I was making a cave in the powder where I was trying to make a trail. As I tried to dig the beast out, who should come along but Richard again. He said he had followed lots of tracks until he found a single set. It wasn't too difficult, seeing as how we were the only tracks on the mountain, but it did take him some time. Of course, he insulted me, but I was glad for the help, so I just kept saying, "yes, you are right." Earlier on I noticed that there was a long up slope that I wouldn't have been able to ascend, but the long track XLT could, so he went up and down a few times until there was a reasonably fair trail, and I got out that way. I kind of learned my lesson that day. On day one, I could have walked out for help. Today, the snow was too deep and we were too far back in the alpine. And this Mach 1 was never ever going to leave the safe confines of the river back in McMurray again.
When we got back to the meadows, we discovered that the other four were not around. We headed back to the cabin and found them all there. They were talking with the groomer operator, Jay Boppre, who was doing a little maintenance work around the cabin.
We think we've found something that Tipper can drive without fear of going over. Richard is on the right, and John and Nancy are on the left. Tipper has claimed squatters' rights on the groomer.
The cabin at crowfoot is one of the best equipped I have seen. It has solar panels to power the stereo and radiotelephone. The prerequisite pot-bellied stove is there, along with some dishes and cutlery. There is a gas barbecue on the deck outside, and the bottle is full of propane, at least for the time we were there. They have a sauna attached to the cabin, but I have never seen it in operating condition myself. If you go up the stairs, you will find a small loft, and several foam mattresses are piled around, however the club discourages people from spending the night. Most important of all, you will find a collection box for donations towards grooming. We collectively put in $20 for our group, admittedly not much, but more than most. I strongly recommend that you toss a couple of bucks in whenever you see one in a warm up shed if you don't already belong to the local club. Sometimes the trail goes ungroomed when the equipment breaks down, and more times than not it is the handful of local club members who put their hands in their pockets to get the equipment up and running again, yet everyone benefits from their sweat. Think how much you would pay to have your blown shocks rebuilt, and the $40 or $50 for an annual membership suddenly becomes a deal.
This is the first thing you will see when you reach the Alpine. Notice the solar panels in the center, near the peak?
We didn't ride much more that day, we were headed for Valemont, a place that some call the ultimate mountain destination.
Valemont is approximately 4 hours north of Kamloops on highway 5. We arrived late Saturday night, around 11:30 pm. I was not prepared for what I was about to see. There were more snowmobiles, trucks, trailers and custom rigs assembled in town than I could have ever imagined. The hotel parking lots were crammed with snowmobilers, and both sides of the service roads on both sides of the highway were bumper to bumper. Half of them were parked illegally, but who cares? There is not much you can do with a 30 foot enclosed trailer when all the parking spots are gone. Nobody seemed to mind anyways. Luckily we had reservations, because it was obvious that every bed in town was booked.
We got up at what we thought was early, around 7:45 am, but the rush had already started. All gas stations in town were in gridlock, and the line-ups were six vehicles or more for every pump. Some trucks had two up decks and a six-sled trailer in tow. Everyone needed gas, and inside the mini marts the homemade submarine sandwich trade was booming. We eventually did make it to one of the hills (Chappell Creek), but the parking lot was full and we ended up parking alongside the highway.
We only rode for one day in Valemont, but even if we had time, I would not have ridden a second day here. The trail in was 28 km of the roughest, deepest moguls I have ever had the displeasure to experience. They try to keep on top of the trail grooming as much as possible, but there is so much traffic in the Valemont area that you are going to see horrendous conditions like these sooner or later. Once we got to the alpine, it was immediately obvious what the appeal was around here. We were in some high country, the mountains around here were right around the 8000' elevation.
One of the girls started to get the flu, and the others were all willing to go back to town. I wanted to stay, it took so much effort to get up to the alpine, but everyone was kind of tired after a good week of riding. I definitely want to come back to Valemont for a closer look, I'll mark it on my calendar for next year. I know that this place has a lot to offer, and I intend to see it. For now, it's back to Fort McMurray for some fast paced river riding.
I hope I didn't get too long winded here, but I'm sure I did. Let me know what you think, you can E-Mail me and bitch if you want.