Twitching Woman, Hidden Moose

Short Version:
A slow start inside a cloud. A new wheel. We ride and walk up a big, nasty hill, then ride back down an exceptionally good downhill run. Stolen showers, Happy Meat, Cryogenics.

Long Version:
An early ride had been mooted, but didn't eventuate. In fact, in the end it was quite the opposite, with a slow start to the day encouraged by the temperature (cold), the visibility (nil: a cloud had settled on the hill where we were camped), and our legs (feeling yesterday's climb). The hill's fog hat lifted then started to come and go in waves, which looked pretty neat as they boiled up from the valleys.

Eventually, we made it to town, where we purchased a replacement rear wheel. Grrrrrr.

We also got ride advice and directions from long-time Fernie mechanical wizard Al, and spent an age chatting to the Dobermann-owning Kiwi and his Ottawan girlfriend, whose names we finally learned (Hi Leigh and Vanessa!) before setting of in search of the Slunt.

The weather wasn't looking too flash, so we were raincoated when we set off from the Reaper through the Mt Fernie Provincial Park to the trailhead. A twitching woman stopped us on the way and told us she'd just seen a family of moose where the Stove trail entered the forest. Not sure if she was trying to warn us off or giving us an opportunity to go see them for ourselves, but we saw no sign of them and were soon far too occupied with the technical challenge of riding up Dem Bones to worry about whether or not we should be worried about their proximity. Wet, slippery, off-camber root systems and short steep climbs - and sometimes both at once - had us concentrating and working hard, and there was little respite when we crossed the powerlines into Mushroomhead. Things got steeper again when we turned up onto Lactic Ridge and then Moccasin, both of which were so steep as to be largely unrideable, although that may have been at least partly due to how far up we'd already ridden.

Finally, after an hour and a half of serious climb and sometimes-sketchy traverse, we reached the start of the Slunt.

Thirty minutes later, we were back at the van, having ridden down the Slunt and Brokeback Ridge and along a partially-submerged road-parallelling track to a tap where we rinsed the bikes, then on through the campground to the picnic area where the Reaper welcomed us with the now-traditional eye-watering grit shower during desecuring.

My notes on the Slunt/Brokeback Ridge descent say:
- awesome, down and down and down
- Great trail, steep, slick, FAST!
- Brokeback = flatter but also awesome. Even faster!
- Both: wet dirt
- Jumps, bermed corners, GREAT!

My ride notes also say:
- Best trail of trip? If fix Lactic + connector + Moccassin then maybe

Lovely Wife was almost indignant on the way up Lactic Ridge, saying "It would be SO EASY to make this an AWESOME uphill trail!" I could see where she was coming from - the trail went straight up a ridgeline, but could be made to wind back and forth at a far more pleasurable gradient. Not without a reasonable amount of effort though, and it's probably not going to be our sweat and pain that's used if and when the undertaking is undertaken, so we'll not complain too vociferously. Instead, we'll laud the awesomeness of the downhill trails, because they really were quite special.

We stole hot showers from the Provincial Park, and snuck into the dirtbag campground via the Suzie Road feeling fresh and clean and on top of the world. The Happy Meat burgers and extra-strong Tres Pistoles Beer were like icing on a cake, only more delicious, and the only downside was the cryogenically frozen fingers we both got when the stove decided to spray fuel everywhere during setup. The peril of machinery I've operated on, I guess.