For the first installment of the powderwardens blog, I thought I would reach back into the recesses of ancient history and report on a mountain bike ride from the past summer. After this I will try to post every week with an up to date, seasonal back country adventure. I can't promise that they will all be cutting edge, exciting epics, as we are average, sometimes lazy and lame, working people with normal lives to lead. Our skills, fitness and levels of motivation vary greatly, but never reach lofty heights. The purpose of this blog is to get the stories and pics of said adventures into a forum where they can entertain, inspire, bore or irritate people. So without further fanfare, let's get started on this blog with a story of a mountain bike ride from the summer of 09.

By late July the Powderwardens were starting to tire of the usual one or two hour rides around our home base of Kamloops, and were looking for something new. Time and money, both in short supply, ruled out a trip to Pemberton or Revy, so Wolfgang and Rex got together to scheme up a Saturday epic around town. We had already done the classic Four Towers ride that involves a downtown start and a linking together of the Batchelor, Dufferin, Aberdeen and Peterson tower trail systems. A great ride consisting of roughly 50 km distance and 5000 vertical feet of climbing, some great single track and a good measure of paved roads and streets. So now we wanted to step it up a bit. A plan was hatched to do a similar ride on the North side of town.

Rex, Wolfgang and Little Cheecho met at Rex's palatial and oh so stylish North Shore headquarters, and started out through town, past the airport and out to Tranquille. Here the pavement ended and the climbing began. Up the main gravel road for 4 or 5 km, hang a left onto a jeep trail and climb, climb, climb! This is a loooong grind, but eventually the road levels off and a sign promises the Dew Drop Trail. Just another km of steep climbing brings us to the trail head. This is an excellent single track descent with fine views that drops you off on the road just above Tranquille. A 70km/h downhill and phase 1 is in the books.

Phase two begins when we turn left just past the train crossing and start sweating our way up the Prudence Pass jeep trail. Now past noon it is 35 degrees out. As we climb to the dry lake water rationing becomes a reality. The road gets steeper here and Wolfgang is forced to do some pushing. Despite the heat and steepness, we arrive at the top of Mt. Mara. Superb views of the valley are our just rewards and we drink them in along with what little water we have left. The down hill off Mara is an old, rock-strewn motorcycle trail. It is fast and fun and dumps us out in the Bachelor Grasslands where we traverse two-track roads over towards the Communication tower.

Now out of water we climb slowly up until there is no more up, then rip the Batch' Trail at high speed down to Ord road. Two or three km through town brings us back to Rex's place and a well deserved Pepsi.

The numbers on the GPS read: Six hours total time, 63 km distance, and 6200 vertical feet of climbing. A full day at the office for the PowderWardens

Next time, an exciting account of our weekly Saturday ski tour!!!!!!