Lumpy's Epic
just got back from a sweet ride up around a singletrack loop trail called Lumpy's epic behind my house. The trail starts out by 1 mile lake off 99, rising up through a lush rain forrest. I slipped and slid on wet roots through this grove of huge ass ceder trees with green moss all over the ground. Im still getting used to the scale of things in BC, so I was busting my lungs out climbing up the switchback traverse that seemed to go on all day. 1/2 way up, there was a noticable climate change into drier alpine air which made it easier to climb, not so much spinning out. I kept climbing up to the BC Hydro towers at the top of what anywhere else people would call a mtn. However, the shadow of MT Currie stood looming over me reminding me what a real mtn looks like. The sun was shining and it was nice and warm. The trail then meandered around to the north side of the mtn with a nice roller coaster affect following the natural terrain with a few granite slab ups and downs rollers. The trail came to a real gnarly section that reminded me of the portal trail in moab. the right side of the technical singletrack had about 2ft of moss and then dropped off a sheer cliff for a couple hundred ft down to the fitzsimmons river with MT Currie still looming from above. I think I got vertigo in one spot. I stopped to rest and tried scoping some ski lines down the northeast peak of MT Currie. the lack of snow makes it look way too hairy to attempt now. Im sure on a good snow year, the pacific pig snot would stick right on there and provide a skiable line. Anyway, the descent back down to the river took me along the ridge of this cliff for awhile. I caught myself watching the scenery too much and realized a simple mistake could be fatal. The fear factor was high and I was happy to drop back into a nicely burmed up singletrack decent that had just about every type of terrain feature you would want along the way. With grin from ear to ear I peddled my way out of the rain forrest and into a muddy ass atv trail that some horses had poooped all over. The mud got so thick in some spots, I had to walk it. the last bit sucked, but it was nice to be able to enjoy a good mtn bike ride since theres no snow for skiing.
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. -Helen Keller
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