Well I just thought I’d share my experience from yesterday.
I went out to the local ski hill here in Calgary yesterday with another Muni
friend because the hill is open to mountain bikers and you can use the lift.
So we got there, went over to the lift and the lift operator just kinda looked
at us weird and starting putting them in the bike rack. It never fails, but he
asked, “Are you guys actually going to ride those things?”
I’m thinking “No, we just paid $6 each to watch our unis go up and down a chair
lift!” but I said, “Of course, anything you can ride, I can ride too!” I don’t
think he believed me though. So, we get to the top after a few more weird looks
and start our way down. We headed over to what they call a double black diamond
bike trail. It had some real nice jumps and drops(2-3 feet) and rocks through a
steep windy rooted trail through the trees. We successfully did about 90% of it
without wiping out but man was it fun. (Even the wipeouts)
We did a couple more runs on the main hill and one under the chair lift through
some seriously rocky terrain that the water runoff from the hill drains down.
That was pretty cool. There is a small trials park at the bottom as well.
Luckily, the guy I was riding with had been there before for mountain biking and
new of some secret out of the way trails that we headed over to next. They were
unbelievable. They were labelled as double and triple black diamond (Which is
difficult expert according to the staff) and they were by far the best riding.
Very windy, with lots of drops and rock and logs to jump along the path. They
are out in a thick area of trees as well so made it even better. Part way down,
we say the greatest part, the man made raised wooden log and board catwalks
running all over the place in the woods. You know the kind of thing Kris Holm
rides in his videos at North Shore. I had never tried them before but a bit of
practise and we could ride most of em. The catwalks with the edges of logs nail
ontop were about a foot and a half wide and up to 4 feet high so they were not
overly intimidating (height-wise) and we found one 6 inch wide catwalk crossings
over a big hole with about an 8 foot drop. We manages to ride all of these and
they were awesome! I only had one high wipeout but luckily had no injuries to me
or the uni.
There were a couple of sections we didn’t even try (chicken? that’s right.) They
were about 5 feet up, only 4 inches wide and had two 2 foot drops along the
catwalk and a four foot drop off the end. I saw those and said, “Ya right!”
Maybe Kris would do em! hehe.
Anyway, we only lasted a couple of hours (just a few lifts to these paths) in
the trees and then we were exgausted. It was definitely worth the ticket price
though and I know we’ll be back. Next time with a few more of us hopefully.
Anyone else got ski hills that open the lifts for mountain bikers around your
area? If you do, go and try it out, it defintely beats hiking up after a tiring
ride down. Hopefully I’ve go next time with a camera!
Enjoy everybody! Mike