Beowulf - Overrated "Epic"

Beowulf IMBA Epic 

Silver Star, BC

900m elevation

35km

The start of the trail

Since the early days of my relationship with Kyle, we have been opportunistically ticking off IMBA Epic rides, bike trails designated by the IMBA as immersive rides that are "technically and physically challenging, beautiful to behold and worthy of celebration." The list is updated every few years with new trails being added and other trails falling off. To date, we have ridden 5 of the current or past Epics including Comfortably Numb (no longer an epic), Waldo Lake, Seven Summits, Mountain Hero, Warner Lake, and a section of the Black Canyon Trail. A new trail was added to the list of Canadian trails recently, so with a week off and bikes in tow, we started our September BC bike road trip with a hurricane drive to Vernon to tick it off the list.

Chilcotin Bike-Packing

I don't know when I first heard about the riding in the Chilcotins, but whenever I start dreaming of epic riding trips, bike packing in the Chilcotins comes to mind. This was bucket list item that got tossed around regularly, but we never actually sat down and made it happen. Usually we would try and make use of multi-week holidays by traveling internationally, rather than exploring our own backyard. Closed borders, cancelled weddings and a slow melting snowpack forced us into looking closer to home for our 2 weeks off at the end of June and a plan to explore the South Chilcotin Mountains Provincial Park by mountain bike started to take shape.

Hours of dehydrating went into the final result - 18 meals and a tonne of snacks