One of the reasons I wanted to move here were the mountains.
I grew up in a mountain town, and didn’t really realize how much of an effect they had on my life. I had to leave the Rockies in my late teens, but have been trying to get back into this kind of environment ever since.
Near Courtenay are a couple of big mountain climbs, essentially up roads to ski hills. Thinking I’d cut my teeth on big Salt Spring climbs, these roads would have nothing on me. I tried to get two done in one day, or at least get a sense of what I was up against. My first attempt at the mountains had me ride up Forbidden Plateau, and then back down into the Comox Valley before trying the road up to Mt. Washington.
Turns out that was wayy too much for me to handle.
I topped out on the Forbidden Plateau road since it turned to wet gravel about ⅓ of the way up. Not great for my skinny-tired road bike. Still a great climb though. I turned back and went to my second hill, Mt. Washington.
I was woefully unprepared for this climb. The gradient was far too much for me to start at around km 40 on an already big climbing day. I barely made it up the first part of the mountain before having to turn back. For consolation I did an extra flat loop and found some goats on the way. It wasn’t going to be my last attempt at these hills.
My second attempt at these was a bit more productive. I decided to tackle the long gravel climb up into Forbidden Plateau. I took the gravel bike this time, benefitted greatly from the granny gear and made it up to the ski hill parking lot. It turned out to be my biggest single climb on Strava, and that was pretty neat. The views were a bit obscured by the clouds, but I managed to make it up to the snowline.
I’ll eventually tackle the Mt. Washington climb again, but need to put a few more miles on the legs, and attack it fresh with less touring kit on my bike.
So that’s what mountains are like.