Words by Jo Peters
I’ve made it to the Chilcotins almost every year for the last decade, and every trip has been equal parts sufferfest and absolute awe.
Ten years ago, I rode the classic Deer Pass loop from Spruce Lake in a long, slow 40 km day. I was still very much a gravity-only gal, and the hike-a-bike and XC approach absolutely crushed me. I remember getting back to camp, drinking a cider, and then puking all night.
But that descent was one of the best I’d ever ridden, and somehow it stuck in my memory for the next ten years.
So this time, we casually decided to turn what is typically done as a three-day bikepacking loop — Relay Creek to Deer Pass to Gun Creek — into a one-day mission.
110 km. Over 3,000 metres of climbing. All singletrack.
On the map, it looked deceptively simple: just a nice loop made up of black lines.
It was anything but.
And I really didn’t want to admit that to myself after it took us two hours just to slog through the first 15 km.
We had slept in. The approach involved a long, sketchy off-road truck mission, and the route required a shuttle, with an e-bike along for the retrieval. By the time we actually started pedalling, it was 9:30 a.m.
The loop was fully committed, with essentially no bail-out points.
Then came a mechanical- a dropper post cable broke (always bring extra cables)! .
We made wrong turn onto an uncleared trail, which meant about a kilometre of bushwhacking per hour.
There were countless river crossings, where I eventually gave up on the idea of having dry shoes.
There was more hike-a-bike than expected, some things were just too steep to attempt pedalling.
And then a cold rain with thick clouds hit.
That would have been a serious problem if it had continued. We were pretty quickly completely soaked, even with rain gear, and there was still a very long way to go.
There was definitely a whole lot of wondering whether we had made a terrible decision.
But somehow, that just made me pedal faster whenever the trail allowed.
And the terrain just kept changing.
We crossed rolling meadows, lush and fluorescent green, before climbing into huge, exposed scree slopes. There were long, grinding hike-a-bike sections, but they were so spectacular that it didn’t really matter.
Were we on the moon? Or in some forgotten world? We even saw a grizzly in the distance.
I've been craving some smooth singletrack for a while and it was endless and perfect until it was broken up by the river crossings and route finding challenges. It was fast and sandy, Ripping corners, up and over roots, punchy climbs, and brakeless descents.
We hit the descent of Deer Pass around 7 p.m., with the whole landscape glowing in the golden light of sunset.
After remembering that same descent for a decade, finally getting to ride it again felt almost surreal and it was even better than I remembered. Perfect fall line and exciting drifty corners that you can maintain speed through.
The Hei Hei was perfect for the mission and made the day a whole lot easier. Somehow, my legs felt surprisingly good despite the massive day.
Around hour 15, the nausea hit hard, but as long as I kept moving, I was fine.
By the time darkness had settled in, we were riding weirdly fast sandy singletrack by headlamp — and somehow, that became one of the best parts of the entire ride.
Eventually, we rolled back into Carpenter Lake at 1 a.m. — three completely cooked riders, with two very dim headlamps between us.
It was one of those rides I genuinely didn’t want to end.
One of the best mountain adventures I’ve ever had.
With a little more preparation, a slightly earlier start, and fewer wrong turns… maybe an even bigger one is next.
