Clinton Bike Rides

The Vitals

Date: July 1-3, 2022

Location: Clinton, BC

Distance: ~150 km in 1 long and two short rides

Partners: Brittany, Will, and Anne

Photos: Brittany

The Trip

Day 1

We drove to Clinton via Hope on Hwy 1 and then north through the Fraser Canyon. We passed by the town of Lytton which was completely destroyed in a fire on June 30, 2021 after setting new highest temperature records for Canada three days in a row (49.6 C). Skihist Provincial Park is just off the highway near Lytton and has been a late-decision place to sleep twice in the past but is currently closed I suppose due to damage from the fire.

We camped at Downing Provincial Park, 18 km from Clinton. A small provincial park on a windy lake, it has 14 first-come-first-serve sites with three open when we arrived.

To stretch our legs after the drive, we headed further from Clinton on our bikes on the Pavilion-Clinton Road. After passing Kelly Lake (just about 1 km long), we started the climb up to the high point of the road. The climb was around 500 m with a nice view south at the top. While we ate some snacks under the power lines we noticed we would get small zaps when we touched metal parts of our bikes. A good argument to go full carbon.

The descent on gravel bikes was hard on the hands as the steep switchbacks and a few potholes were a lot for our relatively weak brakes. Once back at the campground, we went swimming in the very cold lake and made dinner. I also saw my first Cedar Waxwing.

Day 2

The sleeping conditions were perfect – very cool and quite quiet until sunrise a little before 5 am when the crows started fighting. We got up around 7:00 or so and had a leisurely breakfast with views of hummingbirds, eagles, osprey, woodpeckers, and two deer.

Before setting off for our biggest riding day, we chatted with a retired couple who told us that some of the roads had fierce mosquitos. The campsite was a bit marshy and there were a few bugs, but they assured us that it was much worse on other roads nearby.

Without an exact plan but a desire to visit Chasm Provincial Park just north of Clinton, Brittany and I rode the paved road back to Clinton and then headed north on Hwy 97 with the rest of our crew. The highway has a wide shoulder but it’s been a while since I’ve shared space with cars at 100+ km/h and they are LOUD. We got off the road after just a few kilometers and got on Big Bar Rd – a well graded but unpaved road.

We didn’t ride this long before we got onto the winter cross-country ski trails which were very quiet double-track with a few bigger rocks to dodge. The maps showed the trail as an out-and-back but we didn’t pay that much attention so at some point we seemed to be entering someone’s property.

Not wanting to make any enemies, we backed up the trail a few hundred meters and lifted our bikes over a barbed wire fence before crawling underneath on our bellies. During this two minute sprint we collectively suffered dozens of mosquito bites as thick swarms materialized out of the ditches. We jumped on our bikes ASAP, and started riding on the highway while swatting away the most determined insects.

Almost immediately we were turning off the highway again onto Chasm Rd. and after a couple of paved kilometers we were at the viewpoint. Layers of lava flows were evident on the vertical walls before plunging into a steep, green valley full of trees.

From the chasm, we rode on what seemed to be called the Chasm FSR towards a bridge over the Bonaparte River. Our friends headed back after about 10 km but we continued on a fast, gentle descent towards the river in a landscape of blackened trunks and dense green shrubbery. The road was wide and smooth and we only saw one truck the entire time.

At the Bonaparte River we filled our water and started to climb out of the river valley on the opposite side. The climb was steeper than the descent had been, but that’s usually better. We saw lots of animal prints but only a few small birds.

Once back at the elevation of the plateau we swung south-west onto a road that Google can route but it turned out to be more of a gas pipeline right-of-way. We spent about 10 km doing some rough riding, some bog-walking (with squelching shoes) and a lot of mosquito swatting. It had all of the ingredients of a bad time but we were in good moods and just kept moving.

At the first real intersection with a road, we swung a right and over the next 10 km the surface improved more and more until it was actually comfortable to ride again. Eventually we were back on maintained roads (still unpaved) as we passed numerous small farms in a picturesque valley south of the chasm.

One more small climb (with Western Tanagers) and we were on highway 97 heading back south into Clinton. We made a pitstop at the gas station for Dr. Pepper and Samosas before grunting the 18 km back to the campsite. We were pretty beat up after the physical riding but proud of the effort.

Day 3

We had planned to stay a third night but the weather wasn’t looking great so we just did another short out-and-back, this time heading north on Jesmond Road from the campground. The road was a constant, gentle climb before kicking up in grade when we turned left onto High Bar Rd. At the high point we took in the views of the Marble Range Mountains before spinning around and coasting about 12 km back to the campsite.

We packed the car and drove home the long way. First we took the unpaved Pavilion-Clinton Rd we had biked on the first day but this time headed all the way to the town of Pavilion, negotiating steep switchbacks and some deep mud on the way.

On highway 99 we headed toward Marble Canyon Provincial Park but the rain really started to come down and we couldn’t see the famed microbialites of Pavilion Lake from the surface anyway so we didn’t stick around. We drove to Lillooet on the 99 passing some precariously perched ranches and plenty of wild geology far above the Fraser River.

In Lillooet we went down to the old bridge and watched a nesting pair of Osprey and looked at the muddy water of the Fraser carrying a few full-sized trees toward the ocean.

The final drive home over the Duffey Lake Road and the familiar terrain of the sea-to-sky corridor was easy with a stop at Brandywine Falls to cook our last dinner. There was no longer any plan to camp again so we arrived home a bit late but, with an extra vacation day booked on Monday, we had ample time to relax and clean up from a very rejuvenating trip.