Somewhere out there in the lower mainland of BC is a mountain, one I briefly and recently caught wind of, a mountain that serves up some sweet singletrack. Yes, your mouth is watering and so was mine.
It just so happened that a large crew of us were headed to Vernon for a stag for the weekend, a small select 2 of us decided to burden ourselves with an extra bike and an extra ride.
A bother yes, but you haven't really scratched the surface of earned turns until you tackle this behemoth of a mountain.
The profile looked good, the trail looked amazing and so we headed up; up the trail, up up and still further up. This trail Mt Outram is what I would call a serious adventure- granny gear climbing right out of the gates punctuated by pushing, followed by more pushing and 2. 5 hours later we crested the alpine to the edge of a small tarn.
We were crushed, perhaps we pushed too hard, perhaps it's just that hard, but Matt Ryan (no slouch in the climbing devision, think Pantani) and I reached our limits on this outing. We relaxed at the top, drank some water and soaked in some amazing views. But as with all good things it had to end, we were 'Stag' bound, totally exhausted and knew a weekend of bike parking and beers was at the end of our next 3 hour drive. So it was with heavy legs (completely blown quads) and tired bodies that we exited the alpine, but not before....,, Woooooooo Hooooooo for 30 minutes of sweet (overused adjective) singletrack descending - amazing!!
And so tasty after every turn has been sweated into, 'Sweat Equity' at it's finest.
The question must be posed though - 2.5 hours of pushing for a 30 min descent, was it a worthy trade off -if you like to suffer, want the most challenging climb ever, have more time on your hands, or just plain want a tough adventure then this is the mountain for you - Tagged and Bagged, this is our kind of outing.
Just keeping you posted on the good stuff.
Cheers
Dre
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