Interior B.C. Trip Report

[White Chocolate]

About a month ago, my friend Jeff and I were talking about attending the bc cup race up at Sun Peaks Resort and watching our girlfriends race. I went ahead and got a couple days off from work, and Jeff took off an entire month so he could dedicate it to biking and travel. After both our girlfriends bailed out of racing, we decided to amend our plans slightly to allow for a mini freeride tour of the interior. Our wish list of destinations on this trip were a possible stop in kelowna, Silverstar ski area, Sun Peaks Resort, and Kamloops. I managed to score vacation time for the remainder of the week, and started packing for the trip.

Day 1: Bellingham to Kelowna to Vernon

Our first day, we headed across the border without problems, headed east to Hope, and then headed north on highway 5, otherwise known as the Coquihalla Highway. We stopped for lunch at the pass, and had a decent view of some mountain scenery



After heading farther north, and then east to Kelowna, we stopped at the bike shop and got the lowdown on a possible afternoon ride before we headed up to Vernon and Silverstar ski area. My buddies had made a similar trip earlier in the year, and recommended checking out the Gillard trails. This area had been torched during the 2003 Kelowna fire, but the builders have rebuilt quite a lot of features. We got hooked up with a map from the shop, and headed up to the base of the trails hoping to catch a shuttle up to the top. Unfortunately, even though it was saturday afternoon, no one was riding. Not wanting to call it a bust, we geared up and started pushing up the road to the top. Since it is about a 7k push to the top, and our time was limited, we headed up about 20 min. to a trail called Boss Hog. Most of Robbie Bourdon's segement in NWD 5: Disorderly Conduct was filmed on this trail. It was Sick-Gnar You Rail loose, rocky trail between burned trees and wild flowers from stunt to stunt.

Jeff hits the 6ft stepdown at the very top of the trail. A great warmup after 5 hours in the car!



We came across a step-down gap. I figured that since I don't get to ride here often, I had to just give'er, eh? It was sweet!



After some crazy-ass shit (step up to rounded wooden tranny, crazy drop or steep long rock ride to loose berm), we came to the wallride. You had to corner on some woodwork off a 4ft drop to steep tranny and then hit the wall at speed. Railing the wall was an amazing feeling. The bike just glued itself to the wood and shot you out of the end onto the trail.


The gap jumps right after were a bit on the large size, so we left those for next time, and pinned it to the bottom. On the way out, we had to check out the Gillard Road gap. In the collective, it is the gap that Romaniuk throws the no-footer off of. It was as big as it looks in the movie. I called my buddy in Jersey from the lip, he was quite Jealous. From there we headed north to Vernon, and then found a campground for the night. Silverstar and their chairlift awaited for the next day.

[White Chocolate]

Day 2 and 3: Silverstar Ski Area (Singletrack and Scenics)

After awaking, and driving up to the base area in the morning, we got some coffee and got ready to ride. The base area is pretty small, but has some shops, restaurants, and lots of hotels and chalets. It's pretty dead in the summertime up there. This year, the area began operating it's 6-pack Comet Express chair for the bike park operation. Since the base is located mid-mountain, you have to ride down to the bottom. The park staff carved out one of the most amazing trails in mountain biking, named Blast Off, which serves as a warmup and the best way to the lift. It is deep berm to deep berm to deep berm to roller to deep berm to....you get the idea, almost all the way to the bottom. This trail is ridable by everybody, railable by most, and epic epic fun.



The best feature of the 6 pack chair is that all bikes get loaded on trays side by side. It's very easy to load, and the chairs are padded and plush. The views on the way up got us very excited to ride.



Lower World Cup. Yes, those are booters



The view from the top was beautiful



The trail network was really good, especially for a newer park. From the top you had 5 main options: steep, rock gardens, and natural downhill on Downtown, Stubby's, and Dag's Downhill, stunts and fun downhill on Doubledog, or fully pinned radness down upper World Cup.

Upper World Cup booter action.



Upper World Cup lead to multiple Options. You could join up with Rockstar, which is the a-line style huck trail. There were some really fun table tops, berms, singletrack, and a big step-up hip jump. You could also hit Superstar, which featured rad berms, rollers and small jumps, and awesome flow that just kept going. The trail named Flow crossed some meadows, and then just flowed perfectly through not too steep but still technical downhill terrain. It was butter. You could also ride World Cup in it's entirety. It featured a HUGE step up, some good sized tables and berms, the wallrides , and perfect techy singletrack through the woods.

My favorite trail sections were when you crossed the ski runs. You would come out of the woods at full speed and then rail perfect single track through flower-laden meadows. It was incredible riding.



Pure candy, butter, epic, perfect singletrack

[White Chocolate]

Day 2 and 3: Silverstar (Hucks and Stunts)

In addition to the perfect, epic, fully pinnable singletrack goodness, there were some good opportunities for huckage and stuntage. WorldCup had a downhill road section to berm to HUGE step-up. You couldn't overclear the landing. Cedric couldn't overclear the landing. I landed nicely at the top once out of 4 tries.

Almost there, almost there, ughh! It's way bigger then the photo makes it out to be. Seriously



World Cup had these back to back wallride/berm corners. Your bike made a cool sound on them. Easier then they look. More fun than you could ever imagine.





The first one shot you out of it at a very high rate of speed into a loose section to a berm to wall #2. Not as big, almost as fun.





The trail Double Dog had some brand new stunts built the day before we arrived. We helped break them in.



This was a wooden roller coaster to low-angle wall ride. I kinda hit the coaster too fast and almost aired onto the wall. Not pretty, but being the photo slut i am i composed enough for a good photo



Triple drop loving into super soft tranny. It was cherry



Notice that the landing ramp on this huck out of the trees is actually fairly flat at the top, and then steepens. You had to pin it on an uphill to flat ramp so that you could clear to the steeper part. Landing half on the flat, which i did first launch, wasn't too bad. Landing on the tranny, which i did in this photo, was good lovin'




Silverstar definately has it together for their bike park this season. The chair is new, and most of the trails shown above, along with all the built stuff is new. On sunday, i think a grand total of 50 people were riding the park. Liftlines? Ha! The locals were super friendly, and had no attitude whatsoever. I had an absolute blast riding the trails for 2 days, and am definately planning on spending more time up there next summer. They have some new trails in the works that will probably kick ass.

I forgot to mention, most of the ski runs had wild strawberries growing on them. We would stop to smell the flowers, and then eat the sweetest, most amazing tasting strawberries ever. Then i would wander over and start picking ripe huckleberries. Then i would pick some more strawberries. It was rad.

[White Chocolate]

Day 4 and 5: Sun Peaks Resort

After pulling into sunpeaks, checking into a super plush and cheap room, we made our way to mackers on the mountain for food and jugs of frosty beverage. Tired from 3 days of hard riding, we bedded down. In the morning, we got breakfast, sussed out the ticket situation, and headed for the lift. Sun Peaks has had a bike park for a few seasons now, and is considered second best in BC to whister. There signature jump run is called steam shovel. It had some really fun jumps and berms, an interesting gnarly middle section, and then the trains of tables that I personally think were on par with A-Line. The upper half was pretty new, and was fairly loose and dusty. It definately needs some traffic to pack it down. Another new run was called route 66. It was just a buch of huge berms and rollers down the hill directly underneath the lift. The nsmb crew seems to think it was the shit, I thought it was alright, but it had some braking bumps that were kinda painful. The signature shore-style trail at sun peaks is called sugar. Most locals call it the best trail on the mountain. It had some flowy sections, some nice stunts, and strange uphill sections. Jeff seemed to think it was the cats ass; I for some reason couldn't get in the groove. My highlights included bellyflopping in a mudhole, falling off a log into a stream, hitting a couple small trees, a bike toss, and some extremely creative curse words. "Who are you calling fuck face Ross? there is no one around!) I was never able to find the love on this trail, so i spent some time dialing in steam shovel to the bikercross course. Sun Peaks also features some other natural downhill trails, such as honeydrop, kaboom, and Insanity One. This trails had some extremely sustained sections of crazy steep, ass buzzing the tire while trying to avoid rocks, roots and trees, all while realizing that brakes were pretty pointless since it was too steep, dry, and loose to really have any control. It was really fun, although when you go off the trail and fly off the bike you end up landing A LONG WAYS downhill from the trail After another couple laps down steamshovel, we headed to Masa's for several jugs of honey lager and the best nachos ever. While we were eating, it started pouring rain. Really hard. No rain in over a month, and then while we are on vacation, it pours. We woke up in the morning to grey skies, drizzle, and questionable trail conditions.



Jeff was pretty tired at this point from all the riding, and was ready to start heading home. Rather then sit out a day and spend another night in a hotel, we decided to tough out the mud and then head home after riding. I didn't bother packing the camera, so i didn't get any riding shots at Sun Peaks. The trails were definately slippery, but not horrible, and the sun kinda came out later in the afternoon. I spent the day hucking/sliding out of control on steam shovel, while Jeff took a couple laps on sugar. It was starting to finally dry out in the afternoon, but after 5 days in a row of riding hard, our bodies were tired. We ended the day with more nachos at masa's, and then cruised back to bellingham.



I was kinda disappointed that we didn't ride in Kamloops, but it is only 3.5 hours away, and I have some friends that definately want to head up before the weather craps out. So that will be in the works.

It was definately an epic trip, and next summer I will definately be returning to this area. I highly recommend both visiting both areas if anyone gets a chance.

[girlski0912]

FUCK YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nice pics and sounds like a great trip. I am about to post my roadtrip TR including one day of lift access dh in WY that was sketchy for an XC kid like myself.

Nice work

[lph]

Sweet TR, WC! Really good stuff and great pics. Nice of someone to actually take the time to take some good action pics while biking. (besides CS)

[jayfrizzo]

White Chocolate == Ruler.

Nice TR and pics, steezebucket.

[CS]

Hell yes man!!

Good read and sweet pictures. And yes, I am jeolous. One of these days I'll ride some stunts.

[jayfrizzo]

One of these days I'll ride some stunts.

One of these Saturdays.

[edg]

Sweet.

(that is all).

edg

[THE EXCITABLE SPANIARD]

I JUST POOPED MY PANTELONES!!!

[Dromond]

My fav TR of the summer!! Damn, Silverstar looks AWESOME. I don't know if I've ever heard of it before. Just my kind of mountain. Berm, roller, deeper berm, radness.

[zion zig zag]

!!!!!sweet report!!!!!

[Nobody Famous]

Excellent TR, great pics.