So the not long for us Canada Day weekend was up in the air. Tess found out last minute she had to work the Friday so we bailed on plans to go and ride down in Winthrop, WA. We tossed around ideas of different places and ended up joining up with Mark, D, and Destructor (Simon) on a road trip to Rossland. The whole setup was pretty sweet with a place to stay on an 11 acre property on the edge of Rossland with some family friends of Mark's. His parents were there as well and that worked well in allowing Simon to get some babysitting and both D and Mark to ride together. The house is rad, and they even have a full size beautiful tennis court out back (for the record, I suck at tennis!!).
Riding in Rossland is always a good time. This first day we rode from the house out towards Drake, and the down Doukhobor Draw. This is a wicked flowy warm up down with the only crappy part is that it is an out and back if you don't shuttle or ride the highway back. The climb out wasn't as bad as we anticipated and we we quickly climbing our way towards the top of Tamarack Mountain. The climb was windy and had some slippery roots so was a good test of stamina and technique. From the top you jump on a short section of flowy single track before you join onto Whiskey. Now Whiskey starts with some climbing but as soon as you hit the ridge and start going down you get the flavour of it being a black diamond. The are lots of steep rock faces, fast bumpy sections and some optional lines that require much more than an xc race bike to attempt! All in all a super fun trail that challenges the skills and nerves a bit with only one triple drop section that made us walk. The girls did awesome, only walking a couple of features and definitely stepping up their riding! A quick ride home along the rail grade and it was time for beer and reminiscing about the ride! In total it was about 3 hrs including a couple breaks.
Saturday night we dropped down into Trail for a movie night and since the guys picked the trail the girls picked the movie.... Twilight it was...
Sunday we decided to ride across town and check out the classic series of Techno Grind, Full Monty, Milky Way and Green Door. Man, that is fun every time! It's been three years in a row that we've done that section and every time it's just as fun! There are some steep switchbacks with wicked burmed corners out of flat rocks, and some super fast flowing xc style single track in the forest on Milky Way. The tough part is once you are done you have to climb back to town on Green Door but it's still worth it!
Unfortunately there aren't any pictures, too much time riding!
The reason riding is so good there is because the hire a summer trail crew to maintain them full time! Check out more info here.
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