Every once in a while, I get to haul my butt out of bed while it's still dark, load up the car, and head off into the unknown on an adventure that will, more likely than not, involve questionable decision making. Sadly, the relative lack of entries on this blog this summer can attest to, the lower frequency of these adventures compared to seasons past. In my desperation to enjoy what's left of summer, I was eager to latch onto any adventure, no matter how ill-conceived.
Enter Grungefundo. The full route runs 140km from Squamish to Whistler on the Sea to Sky Trail with somewhere between somewhere around 1900m of vertical. With the ongoing forest fires ravaging BC and the resultant smoke being blown down into the Lower Mainland, a bunch of us opted for the "mudio" route, or about half the distance of the full starting from Chance Creek.
With full bottles AND hydration packs, six of us set off through a mix of double-track forest service road, gravel and loam singletrack, and some disgustingly steep and twisty switchback climbing with the plan to meet the full grunge riders in Whistler for lunch before turning around and doubling back. The combination of the heat and the smog made things more challenging than they normally would be, but not as much as we had all feared. I think most of us would agree that we arrived in Whistler feeling the effort, but were not completely cracked. Yet.
After being saved by Coca-Cola and pickles (among other foods) and refilling all of our assorted liquid-carrying vessels, we turned around as one large group. The grunge riders led the way back down the Sea to Sky highway before departing at the head of the trail section to hammer their way back. We decided to keep things decidedly less spicy. Quite by accident, we discovered a section of trail that we had missed in the morning when we opted to take the paved option (aka, missing a trail sign). Even though we were bummed that didn't get to shred it twice, our little discovery and the resultant adrenaline from the mostly downhill section was a nice little pick-me-up for everyone and made the return trip feel a lot less grind-y.
Overall, I think the greatest challenge was having to run a high enough pressure to avoid pinch flatting on all of the rocky sections. Personally, I was aired up to 40psi front and 50psi in the rear. The good news is that nobody from either group flatted (apparently a first in fundo history), but the downside was some less-than-ideal handling on what was mostly loose-over-hard terrain, but it made for some exhilarating moments.
In summary, this was ride where everything goes to 11: the company, the scenery, the trails, and the air quality advisory.
