Chilcotin Bikerafting Route

On Saturday Aug 3 I should be starting my 8 day bikerafting trip through the Chilcotins. Here is a route map:

I’ll start at the big yellow dot. The first part will be an alpine hike-a-bike (yellow) westwards over to a river valley heading north. Then I’ll packraft (red) a few kilometers down this. This enters the Lord River valley via a big steep waterfall, so I’ll have to bushwhack (yellow) a km or two down to the valley bottom. Then I’ll packraft 20 km northwards down the Lord River and the smaller lakes it goes through (red), finally emerging at the south end of Taseko Lake. From here there is an established trail (blue) going back to Gold Bridge via Warner Pass.

There should be lots of grizzlies and bugs, and epic views. The safe aspect is that I’ll be attempting the hard parts — hike-a-biking and packrafting — first, so if there are problems I will have time to get out. The very first part is up that side valley to the north of the Bridge River. The road goes further up than Google Earth shows, apparently. I found this report from a trip that headed east up from that valley into the alpine. I’ll be starting from the same place, but heading west up into the alpine. This photo was taken looking northwards, right around where the yellow dot is:

I tried to line up Google Earth with that:

I’ll head up the creek to the end, and then go left up the western fork up to the alpine. Then I’ll turn left and head west over the alpine. Doesn’t look too hard … I’ve said that before!

You can follow my progress on my Spot GPS map page. I’ll update it every night.

Here is my beast:

(no time to take a photo, I’m leaving in a couple hours — I’ll post em up after)

Front fork:

• 2 water bottles
• alcohol bottle
• bear spray
• water filter

Handle bars:

• Tarptent Moment
• two “Mountain Feedbag” stem bags with lunch inside
• maps and other small items in the pocket in front of the tent

Frame:

• “Gas Tank” bag on top tube which has my Nikon V1 and flash
• frame bag has stove set, clothes, tool kit, and a few other things

Rear rack:

• packraft goes on top, with paddles strapped to the sides
• innertube and piece of spare tire are strapped to the rack mounts by the seat stays
• tire pump mounted on top of rear fender by seat stays
• Thermarest mounted under rear rack, wedged in above fender at the very back end of the bike

Pannier

• food, some other clothes, electronics, all other miscellaneous stuff
• Zipshot tripod mounted on rack / bike frame beside pannier

Other side of rack:

• sleeping bag lashed directly to rack
• solar panel mounted in an Ocean Spray bottle right beside this