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Sunsets and Singletrack: The Search for Zippermouth Lake

May 18, 2015
by Adrian Bostock  
Sunsets and Singletrack The Search for Zippermouth Lake

The old blue pickup, loaded with bikes and camping gear, carries us at 100km an hour across the Interior Plateau. Ass end getting loose on wash board and tires holding the gravel corners as we stitch together mainline logging roads. A 500km tail of dust leads back to the pavement. My trusty navigator, map book open on her lap, reads out the landmarks as the old black lab snores in the back seat. The Chilco, Blackwater and Nechako Rivers bisect the plateau west of the Fraser River; a land of arid grassland, long rolling ridge lines, dense timber and a thousand lakes. We are seekers of dirt. Inspired by rumours and memories, eyes drawn to lines on maps, between the known and forgotten, maintained and disrepair. Hunters of singletrack, connoisseurs of sunsets and campfires.

Sunsets and Singletrack The Search for Zippermouth Lake

Sunsets and Singletrack The Search for Zippermouth Lake

Sunsets and Singletrack The Search for Zippermouth Lake

Sunsets and Singletrack The Search for Zippermouth Lake

“This Sucks Balls.” claims Em, exasperated, as she passes me her bike over yet another patch of blow down. I nod in agreement. We are off course and overly ambitious, we should have taken the clear route back to camp, instead we chose to investigate the left hand turn. Not long ago Pine Beetle tore across the pine flats of the Plateau, leaving behind a graveyard of dead trees. As the young saplings take hold, the roots give way and the dead trees fall. Unmaintained trails are soon choked with fallen trees. In large areas, the mad rush to harvest the beetle killed timber before it became worthless caused cut blocks to run up against each other. The vast historic network of trails which once spider webbed the landscape has been decimated. We are seeking the swaths of unmolested stands of old growth Douglas Fir. These are our hunting grounds as we drift the high plains in search of adventure.

Sunsets and Singletrack The Search for Zippermouth Lake

Sunsets and Singletrack The Search for Zippermouth Lake

Sunsets and Singletrack The Search for Zippermouth Lake

Buying tall cans in the Liquor Store we are ID'ed. “Old as dirt.” I joke as the teller comments on my age. “We are not with the rest of this riff-raff.” I say, gesturing to the group of tree-planters at the next check out. The back roads of central B.C. in May are populated by young tree-planters. We come across them working on hillsides, pass convoys of their rental trucks on the road and drive through one camp that has the feel of an abandoned circus. On their days off they take over towns, dumping their earnings into local businesses and congregating in community parks. Much to Em's dismay we blend in, few suspecting that we are just here on vacation.

Sunsets and Singletrack The Search for Zippermouth Lake

Sunsets and Singletrack The Search for Zippermouth Lake

I cut my mountain biking teeth on the shores of Stuart Lake in the late 90's. A low ridge of southern aspect fir forest, clay, limestone and roots. Off the mental map of 'must rides' bucket listers, the network is small but mighty, fulfilling in the way only a truly organic trail network can be. More scope than scale, entertaining, and largely unchanged since I lived there at the turn of the last millennia. There are just enough mountain bikers to keep the trails mint, yet hardly a hint of these trails turns up on on-line GPX data bases, zero detailed trip reports. No one has been paid to bulldoze some tasteless sidewalk through the woods so the local tourist board can sell you on the next 'must ride' destination, justifying their work with cries of “think of the children.” We navigate by memory and a sketch of a trail map as old as my memory which we picked up at the local info center. Here be dragons.

Sunsets and Singletrack The Search for Zippermouth Lake

Sunsets and Singletrack The Search for Zippermouth Lake

Sunsets and Singletrack The Search for Zippermouth Lake

Luck at times comes with asking the right person the the right question and getting answers you never expected. On our way home, map in hand, we find our way into the basement of Red Shreds at 5pm. Half a dozen people are gathered drinking beer as the mechanics try to get the last jobs of the day done. We leave with beta on a secluded place to camp with a trail leading straight out of camp. Off camber grasslands peppered with janky ad-hoc jumps into steep and loose ridge lines. We half lap the lower section a few times before we decide to return to camp. It must be 30 degrees out as we grind up the road, tired and content, tomorrow we return home. For now; one last campfire to sit around and watch the sunset.

Sunsets and Singletrack The Search for Zippermouth Lake

Sunsets and Singletrack The Search for Zippermouth Lake

Sunsets and Singletrack The Search for Zippermouth Lake

Thanks to the support from Bike Co Whistler / Pemberton, Lapierre bikes,
North Shore Billet and of course @emSlac


MENTIONS: @Lapierre-Bikes



Author Info:
JoeDick avatar

Member since Jul 27, 2010
3 articles

7 Comments
  • 3 0
 Great photo story! Lots of bike exploring opportunities in our area, the Cariboo Chilcotin.
  • 3 0
 Great images, sounds like classic Bostock adventuring!
  • 1 0
 Nice write up buddy ! U always make me wanna go on a road trip after seeing what kind of adventures u and Em get up too . Keep on rolling bro !
  • 3 0
 " in cnetral BC"
  • 1 0
 Great read and adventure Adrian. Did you find any good Don Paco's up there?
  • 2 0
 ride or die my friend.
  • 1 0
 awesome stuff, AB and ES!







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