Rocky Mountain Singletrack

Mountain Biking in British Columbia

This tour features beautiful backcountry lodges, epic BC singletrack, and 2 mornings of skills coaching in Fernie. Rated one of the Top 75 Adventures in the World by National Geographic Adventure.

The Rocky Mountains are Canada's most spectacular mountain range, and the perfect backdrop for an incredible mountain bike holiday. This is our most popular trip for good reason: 7 days of blissful singletrack in the Canadian Rockies (plus 1 travel day), with accommodation at spectacular lodges and additional activities such as hot springs and paragliding. You'll experience the best singletrack the Rockies have to offer, in places like Fernie, Invermere, Golden and Kananaskis, including the world-renowned Jumping Pound Ridge / Cox Hill ride on the final day, which is guranteed to stay permanently etched into your memory! If singletrack is your passion, then experience the best singletrack in the world in the company of other passionate riders and guides.

The trip also includes 2 mornings of skills instruction in Fernie, with an optional 3rd morning: we'll spend the first 2 mornings working on MTB skills with our certified instructors, then head back to our lodge for lunch on the deck. After lunch, we'll have a full afternoon of riding on the massive trail network of Fernie.

ITINERARY:

(subject to change without prior notice)

Day 1: Arrive Calgary/Fernie

Your guide will meet you at Calgary Airport at 4:00 pm (at the information desk on arrivals level) and drive the group to our lodge in Fernie.  This is our base for the next few days of Fernie trail riding. Tonight, dine Canadian style in one of Fernie's excellent restaurants (dinner is not included in the tour price).

Day 2: Fernie

After a good sleep and hearty breakfast, get on your bikes and have an easy local ride for about 2-3 hours. After returning to the lodge for lunch, we pedal on the "Coal Creek Heritage Trail", passing a few mining relics and the old ghost town of Coal Creek. We may even fit in an optional ride around Island Lake with its beautiful old growth cedar forest below the Lizard Range. Dinner tonight is at a local restaurant.

Day 3: Fernie

After breakfast, ride right from our lodge to awesome trails like "Roots and Roots Extension". These trails are hand built by the locals and offer a good physical and technical challenge, which is certain to "stoke up" our appetite for more. After a full morning of riding, we'll stop for lunch and fuel up for a big afternoon of biking. We ride to Ridgemont, ground zero for the Fernie mountain biking scene. There are dozens of trails fanning out from the fire road access, which can be linked up, and we'll pick and choose the best ones, such as "Kid's Stuff" (an introduction to technical stunt riding with small stunts very close to the ground), "Splitting Bears" and "Eric's Trail" (a great descent). After a full day's worth of singletrack feasting, head back to the lodge for a late afternoon tube on the river before dinner.

Day 4: Rest Day, Fernie

After breakfast at the lodge, you'll have the day off to explore the wonderful town of Fernie. There are lots of options for outdoor fun in this recreational paradise, including river tubing, whitewater rafting, horseback riding, chairlift-assisted riding at Fernie Alpine Resort, fly fishing - you name it! Our staff will be happy to assist you. Make sure you have everything packed and ready to go before you go to bed - we're getting an early start!

Day 5: Columbia Valley & Hotsprings

After an early breakfast, we'll hop in the van for the 1-hour drive to Kimberley, home to some incredible singletrack trails in the Columbia Valley. This classic cross-country jaunt takes us along the valley between the Rocky Mountains and the Purcell Range, with spectacular views in all directions. After the ride, we'll drive up the Rocky Mountain Trench to soak in Radium Hot Springs, then finish up our drive at Home Lodge, a spectacular lodge just outside of Golden. After checking in, we'll head to town for dinner.

Day 6: Canyons and Campfires

Today we ride in Golden on the Moonraker trails. These smooth trails leave right from the campsite and feature spectacular 2000-ft-deep canyon scenery and challenging climbs. There are more trails to explore than you could shake a stick at, with some steeps and technical options for the stronger riders (like 'Canyon Creek'), and plenty of easier stuff for the more laid-back. Generally the Moonraker Trail series is a network of intermediate level trails on a mix of singletrack and bush riding amongst cedar and fir forest interspersed with meadows, streams and beaver ponds. Again we'll tailor something for the group but look out for great trails like 'Moonraker', 'Bear Claw', 'Cedar Snag' and 'Devil's Slide'!

Day 7: Golden grins and Banff NP

Definitely a big-grin day with some major vertical descent and technical delights on offer! We'll have breakfast at the lodge, load our gear and bikes and then drive to the summit of 'Mount Seven', Golden's premier ride, which rears 1300 metres (4000-ft) up above the Columbia Valley. The 'Summit Trail' snakes its way down the mountain, taking in spectacular views of the valley and the Kicking Horse and Columbia rivers as it switchbacks downwards. When we're done here we head into Golden for lunch and load up the van for the drive to Kananaskis. We take time out en route with a stopover in the beautiful and world-famous town of Banff. Tonight we'll stay at a hotel in Canmore.

Day 8: The 'pot of gold' ride

This is the incredible, amazing, scintillating and stunning Jumping Pound / Cox Hill Ride. Rated in several guidebooks as one of the best rides in the whole of North America, this incredible trail will live on in your dreams for years after you ride it! Imagine a challenging, switchbacking, singletrack climb up the side of a mountain, followed by lunch at the top. We then do a ridge ride at 2185 metres (7000-ft) surrounded by the massive Rocky Mountains. But, that's not all there's more! Another challenging singletrack climb, then the icing on the cake, 7 kilometres of the most incredibly sweet singletrack, and almost 930 metres (3000-ft) of vertical descent. The standard response after riding this piece of singletrack heaven is '...that was the best %*#@^!# trail I have ever ridden!' - see for yourself! We finish riding in the early afternoon and with huge grins fixed on our faces and a sad tear in our eye, we'll hop in the van for a quick ride back to Calgary. Tonight you stay in a Calgary hotel (we can also drop you off at the airport) and celebrate the best riding you've ever likely experienced, drink a beer (or two) with your new friends and relive the many, many highlights of a simply fantastic trip.