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.

A chilly start to the trip. Up early to get riding

We rolled into the Silver Star parking lot campground on Thursday afternoon. The highways had been empty and so was the campground. A light drizzle settled in so we took shelter in the pub after determining that all the hot tubs were closed due to COVID-19. We ran into a friend from Calgary and joined him around the fire until it finally got dark enough to head to bed. The next morning, we woke with the sun so we could get on the trail early. Unfortunately, we encountered the first of many disappointments with this trail. It doesn't open until 10am, and you need to buy a ticket to ride it.

Reading the trail info which was inconsistent with the info on trail forks

We may or may not have waited for the trail to open and purchase our tickets. Once on the trail, we cruised along on mellow single track through misty mountain forests. It was pretty cold for the last day of August! At the trailhead, a description informed us that the loop would take us through cedar rainforests, grassy meadows and ridgelines. There were lots of "slaying the dragon" references and warnings about turn-around times to make it back to the village before dark. Lots of hype but so far we hadn't encountered anything particularly challenging or interesting. The thing that concerned us the most was the 1928m of climbing promised by the sign, we had been expecting 1300m from the trail forks description, but felt up for the challenge.

Starting the descent. Not a very hard black trail

We continued on, winding our way through rain forest and enjoying the easy grades. When we reached the big descent, it was pretty underwhelming. The trail was built so that it was hard to carry speed into the random uphills after corners and there were big warning signs before the "steep" bermed corners that didn't warrant any warning at all. The trail had little flow, was not technical and nor particularly exciting. I guess it was fun to be out riding bikes, but that was about it.

Snack time at the bottom of the descent

When we hit the bottom of the descent, we fueled up for the big climb. I think I had more fun on the uphill than the downhill. At this point we were both pretty cold and happy to warm up with some pedaling. The top came much sooner than anticipated and we still hadn't seen any of these ridgelines or views that we had been expecting, even after the clouds cleared. 

Lots of misty forests

In the end, the full ascent for the ride was just shy of 900m, which was a relief because we were ready to be done. We had been riding for 4 hours and were cold and bored. Next time, we will give this trail a pass and just hit the bike park.

At least we got some exercise