Last day already?

Well, I guess we should drag ourselves up Fromme then. It must be the last day; the sun is out.



As usual, the climb wasn't everyones cup of tea, but I think it was worthwhile. We spent extra time at the top of Oilcan to ensure that we got into the correct grrove for the rest of the descent.



Stefan makes extra sure...



Here's my Sterling Lorence knockoff angle....



Rob J put on an Air Supply clinic for us.



Yup, that's why they pay him the big bucks.



As we were such a big group, we split up and sent some of the crew down Pipeline while the more adventurous came with me down Expresso.



A charming little trail...





We also split again when we got to Lower Ladies.



Peter was in heaven here.





Another EXCELLENT tour with our German friends. Thanks to all of you who came out:

Sabine Höll
Walter Höll
Christian Moprgenroth
Stefan Morgenroth
Frank Gielsdorf
Ulrich Gielsdorf
Gerlinde Winter
Herbert Winter
Ralph Busack
Anne Thiele
Stefan Sander
Nadine Baumrucker
Ben Bauernschmid
Peter Kemmerer
Martin Berger

Rob J
Karen
Holger

See you in September of 2007. We're going to Kamloops!

On familiar ground again. Yup, back to Seymour. Gotta love the home turf.

I think Stefan likes it too.



The weather was still cool, but much drier than yesterday, to the point where we could ride skinny stuff.



Rob J. got all twisty on us.





Ralph likes the airtime.



Wicked misty out, makes for classic Seymour shots.





Nadine got her ticket.



Here's a different angle for you. Most people who ride CBC have no idea that the trailis this high in the air in places.



Down lower we got into Salvation.





Even Peter got into the wall rides.





Stefan continued to rock the blue jeans, even though we weren't at Whistler anymore.



Ja, Ralph likes the airtime.



So does Stefan.



..and Holger.



oooooh.....airtime shot of the day goes to Martin.



..but shot of hte day has to be one of the following sunset shots of Walter the Austrian.





Cool shots, and getting those killer images probably makes up for me drooling all over his wife (Sabine) all week. Super nice folks, Walter and Sabine. If you ever want to go and ride in Sallbach, they have the best guesthaus in town.

Ahh Squamish. Rainy Squamish.

Well, we gave it a shot, but it was REALLY wet.









Still fun, but REALLY wet.

Back to Whistler. We had hoped to get up Rainbow today, but I wasn't really willing to go unless t was sunny, and it most definitely was NOT sunny up there today. Full on massive black clouds sitting right on the landing zone. Oh well, lets go session A River Runs Through it.

One nice thing about the overcast was great light in the woods. Here's Karen showing her professional side. She and Holger ALWAYS get the good shots.



The lovely Sabine from Austria.



I think you've already met Nadine. Yeah, surrounded by blonde lovelies. Sometimes I hate my job....



Look, another one! (Hi Linda)



Then a bit of sun came out, so it was time to play with the motion blur.





The colours were so rich. It's that time of year when summer is over, but it isn't quite fall yet.



This one is supa cool. I love the happy accidents.



Here's the famous log bridge crossing (the same one that took out Oscar from Florida). I was really trying to get a sunburst effect without blurring, but no dice. These two shots are the best of a bad bunch.





Then back to the bush to session some skinnies. Ralph stomps a teeter.



I wonder what Holger thought he was going to do by spotting. Probably get squished. Rob J. isn't too worried, as he's a moderatley famous freerider in Europe. If you saw the 2007 Marzocchi article in Decline, you've seen Rob J before.



Round and round she goes.....



Fun with the drawbridge. I think we got more than half the crew over this one.





Unfortunately, my knee (which will never be the same after the Epic) chose this moment to go sideways on me, so I wasn't able to go down to Trainwreck for the next stage, but maybe tomorrow it'll be OK. I think a big sushi feed tonight will make it all better....

This is more my speed. Off piste and up to Pemberton. I haven't ridden in Pemby in many years, but luckily I have my trusty assistants to help me. We started the day with PhD on the way there, which was a bit steep for some of the crew.





Hey, at least the weather was familiar for the Germans. Herbert was telling me about how they went to the Porte du Soleil (that's like Sun Valley in French) and it rained for the whole tour.



Some of the guys brought their girlfriends over for the tour, and they hadn't really ridden before. Nothing like hardcore BC steeps to get you into the game, eh?



Full marks to the girls for going for it, even if they screamed a bit from time to time. Did you know that the German word for EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!! is EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!? Nadine taought me that.



Andrea was actually really good at this stuff, she just didnt have the experience to know what was going to happen.



Herbert has all the experience, and kept getting sucked in by all the young frauliens going for it.



Nadine on the classic Grumpy Grouse outcrop.



Galinder was into it as well.



More from the lovely Nadine.



To end the day Seb took us out of town to another trail called Resurrectum (trail name of the year, oh yeah). It was quite the shuttle up. We had to unload the van at one point just to get up the road. Totally worth it, and the look of fear on Karens face was worth all the rain we had.



Like all Pemby trails, it was a long way up and a short ride down, but unlike most other trails around here, it has good flow and fun floaty airs on it.



Of course, it was too dark to get any good shots, but hey, we were riding bikes, not having a picnic.

Another day inthe bike park, and Barb came out to set the pace today.



Nothing outrageous today, just some more shredding at the big W.


Looks a lot like yesterday, doesn't it?

Holger and Karen have returned, with many, many Germans. I think there were around 20 of them, but it was hard to keep track. Lots of them at any rate.

Apparently they've had worse luck than us with the weather this season, and they brought it with them. First snow of the year.



Not that it mattered a lot. Whistler is just fine with a bit of moisture.



Lots of the crew were here for their second year in a row, and you can tell that they've learned from experience. Like Stefan, rocking the jeans for the big park days.



Karen is still dealing with some child seperation anxiety, but she was a good sport about pushing her freeride skills. I tease her (because thats what guys do to pretty girls), but she can kick my ass on any kind of XC bike.



And we ran into Dan. Here ya go buddy, just for heckling me about not updating. How NOT to hit the gap.....



Look at them all!



Hey, at least they were stepping it up....

What, not British?

Holy cow, and American. Randy was here for a conference on medical imaging, like MRI's and stuff like that. I'm sure no one reading this has ever had to deal with anything like that....

Luckily, we managed to have a great ride and avoid the emergency room.

3 big laps today. I guess if you live in Grand Junction, you learn how to ride a bike.

Not that CBC looks much like the Colorado desert, mind you.



He adapted pretty quickly. The light was kind of crap for pics today, so I laid off the camera most of the time. Besides, Randy was a lot of fun to ride with so it was shut up and shred time.



We did a couple of top to bottom laps, and hit all the usual high points.



Ooooo....sunshine on CBC. as it's now December and CBC is covered by a couple of feet of snow, this takes on new meaning.



So ot only did we take three rounds out of Seymour, but Randy also managed to drop the 6 footer log drop at the bottom of Ned's.



Not bad for a rookie....

If you ever need X-Rays in Colorado, let me know. I've got the contact.

Simon was in town briefly from Nottingham. He went for a rip with Courtenay up in Squampton, then came down here for a day on Seymour. I think that all this riding may be affecting my performance. Only one run today.

CBC, of course.



My camera has been acting up a little. What a surprise....



It's kind of a cool vignette effect though. Makes for some variety on the home turf. I think Simon's ridden here before. For those of you who ride CBC a lot, this next one is an excellent demonstration of the smooth line off the log at the end of CBC.



Some Salvation berm action.



...and the gnar line off the Pangor rock..



Wicked. Thanks for a fun ride, Simon.

Enter...Stage 5. The ppenultimate stage, the last day. Also, Labour Day...your last chance to wear white. Yeah .... right.

Grab the Google Earth version of this post HERE.

I've also got the whole tour packaged up in a single file HERE.



Last night was cool, but not fricken' freezing like the night before. We woke up to crisp bluebird skies, and a little gift from my buddy Dale at Tyax Air.



Dale had a lot of loads going into Spruce today, but was empty flying back most of the day, so nice guy that he is he flew our trailers out for us. This meant that we could ride up and over Windy Pass and out via Eldorado Basin and Lick Creek free from our loads. Which is a seriously good thing considering the scale of the route today.



The cool air of the morning was great on the climb up Windy. Here's Shreddie during a rare flat moment on the first climb.



It's a helluva climb to Windy from the back side like this, but it's worth it. There was lots of mandatory walking, but some of us are stubborn....



Not Guinea. He walked the whole way.



Yeah, the pass. We started well on the other side of those mountains in the background, four days ago.



Sort of like a moonscape up here.



There you go, right from the entry to the site.


Steve Mitchell photo.

Yeah, now it's time to go down. This was the best section of the entire route. It seemed like endless flow.





See those two dark peaks in the center? That's where we're headed.



Here's Peter. I couldn't place Peter in my memory for the first little bit. He sure seemed familiar, then we figured out that I used to tune his bike way back in '92 or so. He had a green Kona Hot all macked out with XTR. Now he's riding a plastic Giant. Man, you should have seen that sucker flex when he was pulling the trailer. Not that it slowed him down any. That little S.O.B. is strong.



Bri guy on the west side of the pass.



Chris railing a corner.



Just to put it in perspective. Look for the rider.



Same spot, looking back. Usually you're going up this way to get to Spruce Lake.



Now we're down into Eldorado Basin.



Like daughter...



...like father.



Steve charges into Eldorado.



After a timeless descent into Eldorado Basin, we had to turn and climb up to Eldorado Cabin.



..which of course deserved a little break. Only one more climb to go....



The last pass.



The final descent is the Lick Creek trail, which isreasonably technical and almost steep in a couple of spots.



The really cool thing for me was I that I hiked this trail with my dad and his buddy way back when I was about 12. See? That's me...



This is my old man, back when he wasn't so old. he might have been feeling kind of old that day, as I seem to remember an awful lot of Budweiser at the cabin, but he couldn't have been any older than 42 there.



See, the same lake in the background. I was able to match a couple of terrain features in shots from both trips, but I won't bore you with those. If you really want to see where we were, check the Google Earth links at the top of the post.



OK, downhill time.



Let 'er rip...



Peter doing just that...



After hours of downhill, and encounter with three bears, a couple of crashes, and a little dirt road action, we rolled into Tyax Lodge to collect our trailers.



Of course, with a bar right there, what do you think happened?



Things really went to pieces when a Dutch tourist started handing out the cigars.



Some of us were a little unclear on how to smoke them though.



Steve thought he had the program figured out. A ga ga ga ga ga......I yam what I yam.



Ooops. I guess that wasn't such a good idea after all.




"But will I still be cute?"



Our last camp (well nearly last) on Anderson Lake.



We had originally planned on picking up a lift in Goldbridge and trying for Tenquille Lake near Pemberton, but most of us were falling apart at this point. Shreddie and I had sore knees (mine was essentially toast), Steve was a crusty scab, Shane had a HUGE crash and smashed his back, and everyone else was just plain tired, so we called it off and hung out in Goldbridge waiting for our ride back to Williams Lake.

In a word ... EPIC. Now about next year.....