Outdoor Video Magazine

Length: 26km
Time: 4-5 Hours
Book: Mountain Biking in the Canadian Rockies - Doug Eastcott
Elevation: 1600m-2100m
Date done: Oct 7th 2006
Effort: High
Rating: 8/10
Technicality: Moderate
Map: You actually need 4….but can be done without, route finding is easy.

This ride is an out-and-back on wide single track and single track, that takes you pretty high on to Fiddle Pass. You start from the Whitehorse Creek equestrian staging area, 6km South of Cadomin. It is a good ride with awesome scenery and interesting riding. There is a campsite right at the start of the ride at Whitehorse Creek which makes things nice and easy.

I did this ride in early October, and rather unexpectedly got a dump of 3/4cm snow the night before while we were camping. It wasn’t forecast at all. We were totally unprepared and a little cold while setting up our tent and grilling steaks in a major blizzard and plummeting temperatures….remember kiddies, it’s the Rockies…be prepared! Although the snow made the riding difficult (and ultimately we turned back), it did make it very beautiful.

The ride starts off following the Whitehorse Creek. The riding is fairly easy, and the terrain quite flat. The scenery keeps it interesting and there is enough mud and rocks to keep it reasonably exciting, if not actually challenging. After 7.7km the trail leaves the creek and starts to climb to the pass. Here the riding gets a lot more technical and very steep. Lots of roots and rocks make the going tough, and this is where we turned back. There was just too much snow here for going uphill to be possible. However I believe if you continue all the way to the pass (some pushing involved, and some serious hard work) you are rewarded with a fine alpine setting and stupendous views. And then there’s the ride down that would make all the effort worthwhile. It would be steep, rideable, with roots twists and turns along a tight tree lined path. Awesome. I’ll be coming back here on a less snowy day sometime.