Bhiking
Carrie posted in Recreation on September 8th, 2007
Yeah that’s right, Bhiking. It is this sport where you set out to go mountain biking but spend a good deal of your time pushing your bike over logs and around bolders or flying over the handle bars and landing on your face. Don’t get the wrong impression! It was really only a modest attempt at mountain biking…we weren’t wearing kevlar body armour or anything. Helmets. Helmets save lives. It was an old ATV trail that was somewhat overgrown and unmaintained over in a block called Prince Jarvis on Lake Superior.
We were supposed to start out at 3:30 pm. So at 4:00 pm we pulled out of the school’s parking lot with 2 paddles, 4 mountain bikes (with front tires removed), Darrell (my prof), 2 other GAs and myself all crammed into a pick-up truck with a canoe on the roof. We drove 45 minutes or so to the access point way out near South Gillies and unloaded. Four-wheel drive was a must on this road and with all the rain we’d had earlier that day getting out was going to be interesting, but we decided to drive off that bridge when we came to it.
First we had to paddle the bikes across the mouth of this river that empties into the Lake to start the trail. That was a funny image: 2 people wearing PFDs paddling a whitewater boat across a 10 metre wide river with 2 mountain bikes piled in the middle. Oh for a camera…
The trail was clear and relatively smooth for the first couple of clicks which was nice to warm up with. The only problem was that because it was an ATV trail the centre of the trail had really thick grass that was too hard to bike through, so you fell into the ruts on either side. But then we kept getting smacked by the trees and bushes on the side because we on the edge of the trail. If you tried to get back up on the centre or switch sides then your tires would just slip in the mud and you’d wipe out. I wiped out. Several times. It was funny though. Only one nasty gash on my leg as a trophy. Even when I jammed my front tire into a log and came to an abrupt stop and flew over my handle bars into the mud. I like mud. Mud is soft. I was okay, bike was okay, and we got a lot of laughs out of it.
The area was beautiful too. The topography was great and you can tell there haven’t been many people in the block because the vegetation is super thick and trees are well-established. There were towering cliffs and ridgelines all around (250-600 ft) and the trails went down to cobble stone beaches that looked out on to the back side of Pie Island and Mink Island on Lake Superior. We saw that the only people who use it are anglers and hunters simply by the type of garbage left behind. Fishing line and shell casings…and they wonder why they have a bad reputation. The land is apparently owned by the MNR but has remained forgotten for years. It was originally homesteaded for mining and of course eventually logged but that was way back in the 20’s and 30’s. The Crown bought it back, or re-inherited it or something and then gave it to the MNR who never got around to logging it again and instead put in a series of hiking and ATV trails. The land is sheltered by high bluffs and cliffs, slightly off the beaten path and pretty well just forgotten. Which is why it’s such a great place to visit now! It was beautiful.
We were biking the trails to scout the terrain for a First Year Rec lab that we’ll be running at the end of the month. We wanted to use the bikes to speed up the process and scout more trails in less time but ended just barely making it back across the river before we were engulfed in complete darkness. We didn’t get back until 10:00 pm but it was a good day. The first time I really enjoyed mountain biking because it wasn’t so hard that I couldn’t ever ride and had to walk most of it but still challenging enough to push the limits and try new things. Even it if was mountain bhiking.
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