Lantzville Loop II

Old man winter is getting closer, the sun is getting lower, and, worst of all, my insurance runs out in early December, so today Mother Nature provided us with a respite between systems and me with a bonus ride, albeit a short one.  Andy was locked inside in a self-induced purgatorial work-binge and Ryan had no oil in the KTM's sightglass,  Ouch.  So it was a lone ride today.  I like solo rides, and thought I'd stay local (Lantzville Foothills to Nanoose) and look for some new trails.  Found some good'uns!

Sundew Main: having a slash when I see three dirt bikes heading north-east, way below.  They take a curious trail that I've never seen before.  The elevation lets my eye follow them, and I listen to the throttle blips.  It sounds good. I follow.

Their tracks and lead to this gate, after passing several looking juicy looking trail junctions on the way.  Curious as to where I am, I get the trusty iPhone out.  Sywash Ridge Road it tells me.  Never heard of it.  But handy if you need another route into the foothills/Sundew main...Below, the gap is adequate...

Backtracking from the gate for 80 metres or so, and taking a partially hidden single track path to the right you hit some hydro-lines.  I turned left (north-east) and came out to Lorenzen Lane in Lantzville (I know, never heard of it either, but it's off Superior Road).  Could've gone right, but it had a more "civilized , dog walking look" , so I decided to leave that for another day.

Turning back, and taking some alternative routes into the woods on the west side of the hydrolines, you get into some great trails with some very tasty side routes...This is FAR steeper than it looks from the wide-angle elevation-flattening iPhone cam....

And another.

Above...Ingrid peeks over the ravine trail...You can see the memorial off to the right. Below, Ingrid-eye view from the top down.  There's a slight right hand descending trail across a creek and up the other side.  It's a great ride (vid at end of this drivel).  

There's a little footbridge across the creek.

Footbridge with trail down from the memorial

Above: Overview of the route; Below: Close up of the Lorenzen Lane and Sywash Ridge Road access routes

GPX File Here...

Side note.  I have to mention the memorial for a young man that I came across.  It's a moving tribute to newly married man (August, 2011) called Garrett Paquette who passed away 6 months after his marriage, on November 11th, 2011.  He left a grieving wife and an obviously loving family.  If you take this route, you will see the moving memorial to Garrett.  The memorial was erected for two reasons: one to remember Mr. Paquette, and to "safeguard others not to fall into the ravine below". The ravine is the one I rode down, pictured above.

The fenced entrance, maple tree, and bench serve not only as a tribute to Garret Paquette, but it was also designed to shepherd others across the ravine safely.  You can see that without it, it might be tempting ride straight on towards the gently rising and curving trail on the other side of the ravine.  This is what Garett did.  It cost him his life.  

Be safe out there.  Ride on the right, and slow down.  See you next season.

Time Lapse Vid of Doumont to Bonnell Main New Route

Ok, it took me a nearly a week to produce this video as the much vaunted free software I raved about last week (GoPro Studio) has developed a bug.  I lost the entire 3 hour production two days ago as it crashed.  Since then, and while re doing the video, it crashed every ten minutes.  I have re-installed, rebooted without success. Like me old step dad said, "you get what you pay for"...Don't forget to turn the settings up to HD.  If you don't like the music, no complaints...just mute it :)

The video references points on the map below:

The ten minute epic...

Foothills to Bonnell Main - Alternative

(Click to Enlarge)

GPX File HERE

1 Second yellow gate on right on Weigles/Dumount Road.  Easy ride around.
2 Steepish gulch, winds through trees.  Could be muddy in wet weather.  Surface is sandy duff. Ends in potentially boggy area.  Little technical, but fun.
3 Right goes to Vipond, left to some interesting trails and new access to the Bonnell Main logging road.
4 Right goes to the more traveled Foothills trails and eventually to Phantom or, if you wish, to (6) the open red gate to the Sundew Main logging roads.
5 View point spur.  Steep decline onto a vista where you can see the red gate across the valley.  Scenic. Fun to ride.
6 The popular route into the Sundew Main Logging roads.
7 Steep incline on your right.
8 Overgown lake, now a reedy bog.  Scenic, especially if you climb up the outcrop where you will see the NW Bay logging area on the other side of a small fringe of trees.
9 Descends into a single track alder trail, which may continue into the promised land...or not.
10 Access to Bonnell Main via an easy burm and small sandy single track trail through a small fringe of trees left by the logging company.
11 Bonnell Main (Goose Corner if you look at the associated photograph on GE).  From here NW Bay is your oyster.
12 Viewpoint over Nanoose Bay, Maude Island etc.  Nice small BBQ too!
13 Steep but fun ride up the "loop".
14 Red dirt descent.  Again "fun".
15 Active quarry operation.  Keep out.  Let's not vandalize here and get our access blocked please...
16 Vipond Road Gate.  Locked.  No easy work around.  A small ramp would work as the gate is low.  But why?  Head back past 15 and continue north to Phantom or Harwood Roads.
17 Rewarding connector back to gulch.  Try this on your pegs, weight forward, clutching and at jogging speed in the dry.  In the wet, make sure you have a trials tire on the back.

All in all this was a great ride!  A few B level technical trails, but nothing to stop a dirt bike and average rider.  Mostly, just great fun and as fast as you like.  Watch for other riders, keep right and stop to look at the views.

Time Lapse Video is here...see more recent post...Explanation for late arrival in detail!  (Couldn't get rid of the art below...too funny).

Paul.

Getting to the Back of Ammonite Falls (West Upper Side)

This was intended to be an addendum to my last post where I tried out a few iPod apps that I'm using to create time lapse videos of rides.  I thought I'd begin a new post because the directions to Ammonite Falls' west side might be useful for some visitors.  In addition, I get to plaster a new blog right on top of Paul's obviously superior time lapse creation below, crushing it and rendering it completely ineffective and impotent!

Many people hike in to see Ammonite Falls from it's east side, coming from the Jameson Rd. entrance where you can park at the road's end and hoof it along the foot trails.  Another way in begins off Weigles road, through a yellow gate very close to the Wastelands MX track.  This entrance will take you to what most consider to be the back of the falls on the west side.  You arrive at the top of the falls, rather than the bottom, where the Jameson Rd. trails take you.  After a short ride from the Weigles yellow gate, you need to park and hike the last few hundred yards to the falls.  If it's wet, be warned, the top of the falls are very slippery and there's nothing but nasty pointed rocks to catch you at the bottom!

Here's the GPS track and a quick overview "flyover" movie of the route:

Now, for the time lapse video using the app "Timelapse Camera HD"

I'm not sure I'm going to find the speed and clarity I'm after at this rate.  I'm waiting for Apple to update the iOS for my iPod, (ver 7.0), in the hope that I can go back to using my original app, although it was no real winner to begin with.  Just want to get the speed down.

[Edit, Aug 20th]  I managed to get an older version of Time Lapse running on my iPod.  (That's the original app I was using that I had more success with).  This is the only one of these apps that doesn't mind running close to real-time speeds.  It will allow you to choose the playback speed as low as 1x (normal playback), 2x, 3x etc, up to the usual supersonic, flower blooming speeds that the rest of them do so well.  The results are far better when played back at 4x or 5x because you can actually follow along and see where you're going!  My "auto white balance" was playing games with me on this next video.... Some dark patches.

So, here's the vid:  Almost the same footage as before, just a bit more footage at the end.

Still a bit clunky, but not bad for an app running on iPod.

Two Doumont Area Gates That Lead to Bonnell Main (The Sundew Road)

Okay Tim Berwest -- here are a couple more gates for you to block!  To the more civilized visitors, here are a couple of gates, (1 and 10 on map), that will still get you into the logging roads, (to Bonnell Main):

1.  Begin at the first gate on Weigles Rd. to appear on your right after Doumont and Biggs meet.  It's the one that's slightly off the road... about 100yds or so.  Currently, you can scoot in the right side of this gate.
2.  Take a left at the first major Y in the road (Get the GPS track here.  There are a few twists and turns).
3.  Turn right on the brand new dirt logging road and follow it straight to a slightly overgrown trail.  Careful in the wet... There are many small downed trees/logs across the road on this trail.
4.  Trail slims to a barely visible walking type trail with exposed roots here and there.
5.  Enter the Foothills Trails.
6.  Through the usually open red gate.
7.  Bonnell Main Intersection.  You`re on the logging roads!
8.  Retraced track to a left turn Y, a small trail that leads back through the university trails to Doumont Rd.
9.  Over the white bridge.
10.  Doumont Gate  

A quick overview of the track on video

Panoramic photo of the Lanzville Foothills area

Lantzville Foothills

The GPS track for this ride can be found here.

"Power Line Trail" to Nanaimo River Road: Still Lookin'

We're still hacking away at finding a shorter route to Nanaimo River Rd. that bypasses yellow logging gates.  We have our current standard route, but it's close to being unusable as the winter and snow approaches.  In addition, the standard route is quickly becoming unusable as young alders are growing so rapidly that the trail will soon be overgrown.  (C'mon quads--we need you out there).

Paul and I decided to explore another possible route through from the "power lines trail" heading out towards the logging roads on Mt. DeCosmos.  Google Earth shows a faint line that could have been a connector:

  
 What a disappointment!  The blue trail turned out to be a good road, old and well covered with deep moss with many alder saplings.  Too bad that we didn't find the elusive trail...  It was looking pretty good for a while, but the line visible on Google Earth must have been an old creek bed or a road so old that it's long gone.

Old moss covered roads (the sky blue line above)

Same sky blue road at the beginning of the grown-in alders.  These became quite thick as we continued on this road.

We headed back to the main trail (orange) and revisited the route we had walked a few weeks ago that does lead to the DeCosmos roads, (shown here in red), but the rain has taken over and it's now a pretty steadily flowing creek over roots and well-sized boulders.  This isn't a good alternative route, at least, not in the winter.       

The flowing creek.  It's do-able, but not a good regular route through.

 
So here's the next try.  I don't know why we haven't tried this yet!  I had it earmarked as a possibility some time ago, (I think Paul might have too), but as yet we haven't given this one a try.  I'd like to give it a go next weekend if the rain cooperates:

We zipped out to Rhododendron Lake after we got skunked on our exploration.  Paul pulled in this really nice cutthroat trout.  Last cast, wouldn't you know it.

The catch piqued Paul's basic hunter instincts and the fish was devoured on the spot.

Parked just outside the "technical" trail to DeCosmos.  It's a fun ride to here.  Quads must be taking this route often to get through to DeCosmos:  We saw a few logs jammed into holes here and there.  Could you remove them once you're through so we don't break our necks on the bikes?  ;)