Friday afternoon before a weekend road trip. The heat of the summer has melted time into a slow supple lump. It drags its way across the clock, the weight of it the only thing keeping the seconds hand moving. It s malleable form no longer able to move on its own it relies on its flaccid weight to pull the seconds hand across the face of itself. I am stuck in the tar pit of Friday afternoon, unable to think of anything but the sweet smell of sun baked pine needles and the soft sounds under my tires of the duffy trails of Iron Mountain.
4:02 and I am in warp speed, time is catching me up! Bike home, throw the bikes, cooler and gear into the truck and we are happily bumping down the Coquihalla. We gather another team mate in Hope, at a rest stop and chat up the weekend over pie. Sod the calories, I’ll put them in reserve for tomorrow.
The hotel is the best of all things a hotel should be: cheap. The furniture could have been gran-mammies , but the showers were hot Tommy guns of cleaning power . The free breakfast and waterslide topped off the deal .
Saturday morning at 9am we met the crew and scuttled to the top.
The mosquitoes were glad to see us and soon we were lost in a black cloud. Only one cure for that and that is movement!
The trails were cool and dry, the conditions perfect. Loam, rocky technical and tight corners between tree tried to keep us off our bikes. The almost succeded too!
The truly beautiful thing about Merrit is the changes you will see in the trails as you meander through them. At the top its dry, sweet smelling dirt trail with small sub alpine trees, knurled and dried taught barley a handle bars width apart.
The ancient crevasses, the waterways are moist soft areas, fertile and blooming, with air you could cleanse your soul with. Grass grows waist deep here, only a tire wide trail of tamped greenery to show you the way. By this time you have stopped for a rest and realize that you have been on the trail for an hour. The good news is you aren’t even halfway down and it keeps getting better from here!
The Godey Creek trail is a field trip through every ecology available in BC. If you can stop having so much fun on your bike and take a look around you’ll see things like this:
Mosquito photo bombers. Only available in Merritt.
A few minutes into the first run I crashed. I don’t know what stopped me so fast but it sent me sailing over the bars onto my chest. Thankfully I had a great crew to come pick me up and dust me off. One of them even found my glasses for me.
Glasses. Now borked. I thanked the trails gods for armour and we all got back on our bikes. Later on one of the guys saw blood.
It must have bled for all of 5 seconds. I was hoping the mosquitoes would see it as a donation but they continued taking their dues the old fashioned way.
The next day we did another quickie of 98 and Goodey Creek. There would be no more pie but we chewed up a big slice of good times and headed back home.
