January 12, 2023 - Chilliwack
Stats: 18 km / 1128m gain / 895m high / 5:20 hours MT
Looking for a challenging local longer workout? This is it. Its a mountain biker's paradise, so I'd suggest to do it on a week day. We lost count of all the ramps and boardwalks.
It was also a challenge to try stay warm and dry. The latter was not possible, having spent most of the day in a deluge of atmospheric rivers. By the end of the day it had rained about one inch! Add to that the fact that temperatures were hovering just above zero at the higher altitudes.
We parked at 9:30am at the almost empty Main Beach parking lot by Cultus Lake, off of Lakeshore Drive Rd.
We started out on the Lake trail.
When we got to Parmenter Rd, we turned left and in about 10 minutes we reentered the forest, turning right onto the Notorizer trail.
At the juntion of the Sunny Side Up trail, we turned left onto Dilema trail which basically runs parallel to Sunny Side, but was a more direct route. To my delight, this was the trail I was hoping to find. I had hiked it about 10 years ago and remembered the numerous mountain bike ramps. This long one has deteriorated even more over the years and is in the long process of returning to the forest from whence it came.
And the Christmas tree is still there!
Wendy's getting ready to swing her leg up and over.
Shortly after we crossed Vedder Mt FSR, we came to a 3-way junction. Right is Ditch Chicken, left is Terdferg on which you can see this bridge from the junction, and the middle looks like an eroded logging road, named Up & Over. We took the middle route.
From Up & Over we did a sharp left onto Mongo Lloyd trail and finally a right onto R.E.F.R. This was the steepest section. It led us to the usual parking area at the trailhead to the popular Vedder Ridge trail.
By now we'd been climbing for about two hours. I knew the summit would not be attainable since daylight hours were limited. We had agreed to make 1:00pm our turn-back time.
At the viewpoint overlooking the Vedder Canal and Sumas Prairie.
Not far past the viewpoint is the picturesque pond.
We had a short lunch here, changing into any dry clothes we had. Our immobile bodies were getting too cold too fast. Had to get moving again. I learned that hotshots don't work if they get wet.
We went back on the same Dilema trail, because I'd lost my mitten. We did find it again but then I lost it again. Silly me. I take them off to take photos and then forget about them.
Instead of hiking the last section before Parmenter Rd. on the Notorizer trail, we stayed on the Dilema trail.
The trailhead to Dilema is not too far past the yellow gate on Parmenter Rd.
The curved grey lines are where we've driven on seperate occasions on the Vedder Mt. FSR.
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