Cumberland BC - second time

We still had many more trails to ride in Cumberland.  Today is our last day on Vancouver Island.  Tuesday will be spent driving, riding a ferry, and driving home to the Pass.

Kevin chills out at top of small climb on Missing Link

2 & A Juice, Missing Link (nice bench at a lookout), up road past Cumberland Reservoir, to hike-a-bike up Miner's trail to the a lake and the start of Bucket of Blood.  We should have continued up the road a bit to another doubletrack climb that switchbacked more (instead of going straight up) to the top of Bucket of Blood.  Rode this to newly worked Bear Buns to Sykes Bridge.  We were here a few days ago.

Cross bridge and up shaded double track on the right to climb on Climax Trail to the Trent Main logging road.  Left at the first intersection up the road to the start of Trent Canyon Trail.  Took that fun trail all the way to the end at the road.  Lost some downhill on the road to a left.  Took a right on a double track that hooked us into the middle of Blue Collar.  Rode that romping descent to the intersection with Short Line and went left and climbed to the intersection of Teapot.  Bombed down that to That Dam Trail to the Allen Lake Reservoir.  Circled around on some unmarked trails in a clear-cut; Sunset Strip to Shaker to Entrails and the intersection of Rugburn, where we ran into a local, Scott.  He offered to let us follow him back to town on single track trails.  So, we retraced our steps on Entrails, Shaker and  Sunset Strip to hit Short and Curly, which was in the trees, not clearcut yet.  Rode recently reopened Spanker thru the clearcut.  Onto a trail that Scott built, which was more flowy, with wider banked corners to Spanker and another fun descent on Space Nugget.

Great day.  27.3 kilometers.  Was sure nice not to have to pull out a map on the last 5 kilometers following Scott.  Unfortunately, this area is ripe for planned logging.  We saw the boundary flags all over the new Climax and Trent Canyon trails.

Kevin on technical section on Bear Buns

Lumpy section on Bear Buns

Francine on Sykes Bridge

Ramp on Trent River Canyon

Steep section on Trent River Canyon

Snowden Forest - Campbell River, BC

Drove about 25 miles north of our house to the town of Campbell River.  We had come crappy maps, that caused us to get a little confused finding our  parking area.  After we made it to the Lost Lake parking area, we found a well marked trail system with lots of cross country riding.   Not a "freeride" destination but we enjoyed the cross country style trails that included several good downhills.  Francine had a loop she found on the internet and it made for a great ride.

Francine coming down Wiley's Woods

Route:  Lost Lake parking area, Trimac, Riley Lake, Gun Barrel, Access up to Wileys Woods, Enchanted Forest, Lookout loop(clockwise), 11th Lick, Frog Legs, Lower Lost Frog, Upper Lost Frog, Red Devil, Ham Sandwich, Grilled Cheese, Mudhoney Pass, Lost Lake Loop, to car.
14.2 miles

Nymph Falls/Puntledge/BC Hydro, Courtenay BC

Today was suppose to be an off day.  We looked at our maps and found some trails that were labeled "easy" green circles for smooth and fast riding, with little elevation gain.  We parked at Nymph Falls outside Courtenay.   This is the bottom of the Forbidden Plateau area, and typically a shuttle area.  We were planning to just do the bottom green trails with a possible logging road climb up to an intermediate, blue square trail.

The trails leading out of Nymph Falls were actually pretty fun.  Fairly smooth with no major climbs.  The "Bear Bait Trail"  was well made and had a lot of fun up/downs.   We probably should have stuck with the easy trails, but we decided to climb up the logging road to hook into the only blue trail that drops down from the Forbidden Plateau.   "Transmission" was pretty neat, but Francine ended up walking several sections.  Then to make a loop we crossed over the Comox Lake outflow and took the Bevan trail downriver.  This made for a pretty long loop, especially as we had to climb/walk back up to Nymph Falls.  Overall great day.  Not sure that it was much of a rest day.

Francine does a little walking on Transmission trail

Kevin 

Trails - counter clockwise from Nymph Falls -  Tree Bender,  Cog the logs, Bear Bait,  Boston Main logging road to "Transmission".  Rode that down to "Catnip", we think.  Went right and then down on some unmarked trail "Bics", we think, which dumped us onto an earlier section of Bear Bait.  Retraced our steps on Bear Bait to the dam.  Crossed the dam over Comox Lake and hit Bevan Trail to its end,   BC Hydro right of way to Duncan Bay Main road, crossed river and headed up Twister trail( lot of logs and walked a bit, probably not an "up" trail.

20 Kilometers.  13.5 miles.

Hornby Island, BC

 Hornby Island,  from Vancouver Island , took us two ferry rides.  One to Denman Island, and another to Hornby Island,  Even though it was a Friday morning, we made it on to both ferries without waiting for the next boat.   Hornby Island has probably become the most well known mountain bike destination that is "almost" on Vancouver Island.  It comes highly recommended for good views and trails that are "smooth" by Canadian standards.   We found a little of everything.   The legs were a little tired from yesterday, but we still managed to pump out 22 km.

Kevin with the ferry from Denman in the background

Francine on Chris & Brad's

Chris & Brad's Trail

Trails we rode:  Up Middle Bench Trail - Bench Connector - Up Outer Ridge Trail.
Down:  The Way - Four Dead Aliens - Test Tube - Chris & Brad's - No Horses.
Up:  Northwind - Cold Deck - Cliff Trail and Down on Hot Rims.
Up:  Northwind - Cold Deck - Slalom to top of Cliff Trail.
Down:  Outer Ridge Trail - GFT to Bench Connector and back out Middle Bench Trail to car.

Cumberland, BC. Vancouver Island

Francine gets going downhill on "switchback" trail

We arrived in Cumberland a little too early for the bike shop to be open.  We pulled into town about 9:15am.   The town is very cute and has several coffee shops and a Brewery,  with a pizza place next door.   We pulled into the "trailhead" parking lot at the top of main street.   As we were getting ready, we got some trail info and a well used map from a young couple that had just moved from Kelowna to the island a month ago.  They got us started on the logging road climb, then started to pull away into the distance.  Thankfully, Gary came riding along, and we hooked up for a slightly more moderate pace, as he led us higher and higher, to the top of the "switchback" trail.  Lucky for us, Gary was riding at a rest pace, since he did a 100k road ride yesterday.  It also might have helped that he was on day 5 of riding, and had heart surgery three weeks ago.   Typical Canadian rider - overly fit.   Anyhow, at the top, Francine asked how tough the black diamond trail would be.  Gary thought Francine would be fine since she appeared to ride the road so well.  Needless to say the trail started out steep and rough.    Brain check.  Yes, we are in Canada, where we typically are smart enough to stay away from black diamond trails.   Blue is our favorite color in Canada.

Lot's of wood in Cumberland

Trail ducks through stump

More wood

Bit of clear-cutting going on in the woods

Overall turned out to be a great ride.  Really nice to get led up the maze of logging roads by a local.  The black diamond trails were totally rideable for me, and Francine only had to walk certain sections.   We ended up with 14.6 miles of riding, with overall elevation gain of 2,500 feet.  Beer and Pizza at Cumberland Brewery after picking up some more ride info at the bike shop.

Trails for the day, from the top:  Switchback, Upper Potluck(lighthouse), Potluck, Upper and Lower Thirsty Beaver, Blue Collar, Railroad, Crafty Butcher, Black Hole, Space Nugget, Big Log