This is a back-post to my epic weekend on Aug. 14/15 2010. I started off biking Big Elbow Loop on Saturday - a nearly 43 km loop that left from the Elbow Falls Campground at the end of HWY 68. There's about 750 m of steady elevation gain along gravel 4WD roads, followed by a long section down through single track (provided you go counter-clockwise). The next day I went hiking with different friends intent on Rae Lake, realizing part way in that my two routes almost met! We never did quite make Rae Lake due to an overgrown trail that we didn't feel like bush-whacking through... We still logged nearly 18 km and thankfully only ~270 m of total elevation difference (although as you can see from the log there was a little more up and down then that). We almost made it to one of the other lakes in the area, but I had to call it due to exhausted legs and it getting a little late in the day... very tiring, but satisfying weekend! Notice that Big Elbow Loop circles around 3 peaks that I was hoping to tag this year in an epic Solstice hike, but snow conditions have not been cooperative.
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| The routes |
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| Big Elbow Loop |
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| Checking out the rocks and cooling off by Elbow River... (okay, most likely it was an excuse to give my rear-end a break from the saddle). |
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| The trail was pretty non-technical, but made up for it in length and prolonged climb up. |
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| The single-track on the way back was quite a bit sweeter, but at least there were some awesome views the whole time! |
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| The profile into the "Rae Lake" area... although this really rambled around a little bit (part in the middle) attempting to track the trail, then gave up and went to the intersection of the trail towards Tombstone Lake, then back out to Elbow Lake... There also might have been a wrong turn onto the Rae Glacier Trail. |
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| Elbow Lake - this is a gorgeous backcountry campground that's up a short but steep hill from the parking lot. Seems like an amazing place to take off to do some good hike & bikes (or hikes and bikes!). |
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| There's not a ton of elevation gain on the main trail through the area but the scenery is amazing since it's up in Highwood Pass. There are trails off to more elevated spots, but the distances in can be substantial. |
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| The structure in these mountains was amazing - geo-geeks delight! |
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| Some of the trail was more single-track like, but the connector trails between branching trails was double. |
