Lucky enough to be heading to Squamish & Whistler in a few weeks with the wife and wondered if anyone had any advice on must ride trails. Have a week in both locations and will probably head to Pemberton for a day whilst in Whistler. Not into jumps so looking at the more singletrack/enduro type trails.
Not really got any plans as yet but we'd both like to do Lord of the Squirrels and Top of the World. TIA
In Out Burger and the other slab trails would be a must at Squamish.
Lord of the squirrels was pretty memorable as was Dark Crystal in Whistler.
Lord of the Squirrels was a 3h pedal up. We stayed at 7am to avoid the heat of the day. I found it hard, even after a week of riding the bike park- steep with tricky moves.
Dark crystal is the second half of the video. The first half were "easy" trails by the lakes.
I've been to whistler twice and both times top of the world has been shut for weather. Both times there was a possibility of riding it, but it shut for the season a day early.
Have a great time 😁
Float plane with Tyax Air in the Chilcotins and a heli drop from Rainbow Mountain 🤟🤟🤟
Just got back from a trip a few weeks ago. Tips:
in Squamish the new trail intergalactic was pretty epic for views and fresh trail for nearly 2k feet descent. We did 3 uplifts with shred shuttle (intergalactic is then another 600 ft up again), then peddled laps in between. So many good trails marked and not marked that you won’t be able to do it justice pedalling all day (we did 8k feet descending, probably 4k uplift and 4k pedal in a day]
in whistler as mentioned above, obviously the bike park is epic, but if there for a few days then do a morning pedal up Blackcomb and ride Dark Crystal, Crazy Train and Micro Climate. Then hit the park in the afternoon.
have fun.
Re. Squamish, depends on skill level really as there is everything from cruisy flow trails to ridiculous stuff.
In terms of 'enduro / singletrack', can't go too wrong with some of the trails in Diamondhead. i.e. Angry M, Ditchpig, Upper Hybrid into Mcloud and Whet Yer Blade etc.
Yes, Intergalactic is a great new addition, but it is getting a beating with all the riders wanting to ride it in dry conditions. It'll be a long walk if you don't like steep exposed lines covered in loose powder / marbles.
The Alice Lake area is the most 'Squamish'. Slower, techy trails with plenty going on and generally (for me....) wheels on the ground stuff. Pamplemousse possibly the most 'enduro' and good fun. Rupert is a classic Squamish trail and has ride-arounds for pretty well all harder slabs / features. I'm not saying don't ride In N Out Burger, but these days it's just one slab to test your nerve / brakes on and a blown out trail to the bottom. I haven't ridden it for around 3 years and I live here. Nice view though, and you can ride another way down from there that is all singletrack if you sniff around.... Entrails / Boney Elbows / Hueso is popular if you are confident on slabs / tech stuff.
For practicing slabs, there is a good one called Birth Control Slab (on Trailforks) which is steep enough to get you to use the correct technique (loads of weight on the front wheel, loads of front brake, stay low etc etc) but has a nice run-out should things go wrong!
Top of the World is the obvious choice at the Park. It's genuinely one of the best MTB trails in the world
Lord of the Squirrels is a looong day out - 6 hours + and especially if you've rented a bigger bike. There's (obviously) a bunch of climbing and lots of it is pretty relentless - although its never mega-steep. You can bail as you get to the actual signposted "Into the Mystic" so if you're at all not up for it, you can bail - the trail down from there is pretty cool. I'm glad I've done it, I wouldn't do it all again. Take bear spray; up there is grizzly country and they're not so wary of you like the black bears are.
The park trails that use the lift to Creekside are pretty cool, and less busy than Garbanzo.
Never ridden at Squamish, next time...
Top of the World is the obvious choice at the Park. It's genuinely one of the best MTB trails in the world
Is it? We only rode it once, and on unfamiliar rental bikes, but wouldn't have hurried back. It felt like large stretchs of the trail were just 'filler' to make it a longer trail. I'm not really a park rider though so maybe that was the problem.
Can't offer much other advice as I mostly only rode Seymour or Fromme in Vancouver due to lack of transport, but I did enjoy a trip to Cumberland on Vancouver Island immensely, was guided by the people operating out of the hostel there. Could be a nice two/three day trip if your itinerary isn't fixed yet.
Is it?
Given that everything like this is a personal choice/experience, yeah I'd say so. The ride to get to the trail head, the scenery, the ride itself, the length of it...All make it pretty unforgettable experience. There are sections where it's flat and wide fo'sure, but that's true of most trails anyway. Along with the Whole Enchilada (which has it's own dull bits) TOTW I reckon is a 'must do'
Thanks everyone, plenty to go at there. Some I've already found in research, some I've not. I can't wait to be honest, really looking forward to seeing how I get on with the slabs, though the Mrs is a bit nervous already 😆
In & Out Burger is on my list just because I want to do it, though I think we'll do some small slabs first to build up to it. Hopefully the good lady will have Lord of the Squirrels in the legs, she's done some big rides in the past like the Torridon Lollipop. And fingers crossed Top of the Word will be open.
I've got 10 days in Whistler next month. Do I bring the DH bike or Stumpy Evo?
I would expect we spend most of the time in the bike park, so obviously DH wins there, but is there stuff with enough pedalling in to make it worth bringing the Stumpy?
Top of the world ok for DH bike?
And Squamish? I've seen some videos and looks like it should be ok for DH with shuttles.
I've got 10 days in Whistler next month. Do I bring the DH bike or Stumpy Evo
Stumpy.
The park is fun for a few days, but it gets very rinse & repeat after a while. I’d much rather spend my time out on the valley trails.
Ive ridden Top of The World a few times, admittedly never out of choice, it’s always been in when I’ve raced an EWS there in the past, usually part of some disgustingly long stage back down into the park or down towards Creekside & it’s always felt like a miserable experience.
I don’t think I’d stick it even in my top 50, thinking back. It’s really not that great - there are many other significantly better trails out there.
I'm really anti YouTube influencers for squamish content. As such, ignore Remy, yoann, lowthorpe, buchannan, Spitz etc as your experience absolutely won't be what you see in their content. They're also a pretty big reason that SAR have so many extractions off in and out burger.. so tread with caution and warm into it like walleater says.
S
This is what happens if you get In N Out Burger a bit wrong. The funny thing is, the person in the video ended up being a well respected skills instructor 😀
A decade since I’ve been, so lots will have changed but take the stumpy. It will be fine for everything unless you’re dead set on smashing park laps day after day. Hire a DH bike for a day if you need to.
Also remember that blue trails in Canada would be red trails at a UK trail centre.
Ive ridden Top of The World a few times, admittedly never out of choice, it’s always been in when I’ve raced an EWS there in the past, usually part of some disgustingly long stage back down into the park or down towards Creekside & it’s always felt like a miserable experience.
Well there’s your problem. TOTW is a trail experience. If you go expecting a non stop tour de force of features and flow then you’ll be disappointed. I did the original route back down to main park and think it took us about an hour and a half. Ride the different zones as sections. Stop to take photos and enjoy the surroundings.
I loved Squamish. I was out the with Bearback holidays and had Mark guiding us, so didn’t have to worry about trail choice. We were also lucky that he organised a couple of shuttles for us, to avoid too much climbing. I’d really recommend some shuttling if you can, otherwise you can spend most of the day climbing to ride one or two trails.
The only other thing I’d say, is don’t be too set on riding any particular trail just for the sake of it. One thing the insta clips don’t show is the 3-4 hour round trip to get a spectacular looking feature on an otherwise middling trail.
First time I went was around the time Remy had been doing all his park videos. I had it in my mind that I wanted to do A Line top to bottom by the end of the holiday. First run down the easy top part, I realised that wouldn’t happen. I’ve got no ego, so just moved on and enjoyed the rest of the holiday as it came.
