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After renting a couple fat bikes, we (Miriam, her house mate Joanna, and El Toro Guapo) headed out last Sunday to the Stampede Trail, located just outside of Healey. The Stampede Trail has recently gained fame as the ‘magic bus’ (Into the Wild refernce) is located off this trail. We headed out early and were treated to an amazing day in the Interior.

The plan was to ride in 30 km (~20 miles) to the bus, hang out a bit, then ride back out. We estimated that we would be able to at least average 7.5 km/hr, making it a 4 hour journey (1-way) maximum. After a bit of time, we ran into a bunch of open water that was flowing fairly fast – fast enough to not want to attempt to cross and chance getting really wet and cold.

After pondering a little while, we decided to try a 2nd trail just to see where it would go. Luckily, this trail was solid across the water, but split soon afterward. We picked the (wrong) trail that headed off down a trapping line and took us well out of our way. It was a pretty trail, but it was really rough and slow going. We finally ran back into the Stampede Trail, but I starting to bonk. Soon after joining the Stampede Trail ~4-5 hours into the journey, we hit another large river, which we thought was the river adjacent to the magic bus. We thought it was the river just based upon the amount of time we had estimated for the one-way journey. I was completely bonked and we stopped to eat (not knowing how close or far away we were from our destination). While eating, a number of snow machiners came by and they informed us that we had only made it about half way! We knew we were not going to make it, so we headed back to the trail head.

It was a beautiful day. Out 9.5 hours. El Toro Guapo had a great day and fell asleep in the truck immediately. I will post the rest of the pictures in my gallery in the next day or two.

UPDATE 16 March 2012: I have posted more photos in the  image gallery. Miriam and Joanna’s pictures are also included.