Bike-Packing TEXADA Island, BC 2020
Distance: 137km Days: 3 (half days) Unpaved: 75% Singletrack: 0%
Difficulty: yes Rideable: 100%, maybe Total ascent: 2,400m Highpoint: 670m
Sometimes it is hard to avoid the paparazzi. Miles Arbour of bikepacking.com took this photo of us at Powell River.
Three silverbacks visit the Texada interior and ride "The Rock" from end to end.
Texada provides surprisingly good riding on excellent surfaces.
Highlights: Camping by the sea, quiet in the high season, plenty of vertical, some nice flowy double-track, mature second-growth forests and the Van Anda general store (for ice cream, potato chips and beer).
Don't miss: swimming in the flooded quarries (we did)
After a couple of ferries, Rob, Steve and I landed at Blubber Bay and rode the 9km on asphalt to the island hub of Van Anda and the general store. We picked up a 6 pack of IPA and headed down to the government wharf and drank cold beer. Classy guys!
We were all feeling happy on the road to Gillies Bay. Fortunately, there isn't much traffic on Texada.
There are all kinds of roadside attractions on Texada. This was an early dozer.
We met friendly locals including Shannon who is passionate about mountain biking. He & others have hand-built about 50km of MTB track and are working on formalizing the relationship with landowners.
Shannon gave us some excellent instructions for some tracks to Gillies Bay. We got some of them right and then missed a turn; we should have written them down.
Old dozers at Shelter Point, family oriented, campground.
We had another 14km on good gravel to Shingle Beach. The beer had worn off by then.
We stayed at Shingle Beach Recreation site and sorted out the camp fees with the campground host. We collected fresh water from a small creek a little ways down the beach.
We had a 5m high tide to contend with. Rob moved his tent up a little higher but we all kept dry.
We started out as fresh as Shasta Daisies the second morning.
We skipped "Break Your Ass Hill Road" (that is how it is labeled on the Backroads map) but took "Texada Branch 1" south, with some fine views over Sabine Channel.
Texada island is about 50 km long with a population of around 1,000. Regular BC Ferries run from Powell River. First Nations inhabited the island for many thousands of years. It was named after Spanish rear-admiral Felix de Tejada, though the name was originally intended for Lesquiti island but changed by a cartographer. Texada has a more recent history of mining and logging. We saw just one pottery shop on Texada.
Most of Texada has been logged but there is plenty of mature second growth forest.
We were cruising along Branch 1, past the more traveled "9FSR", and then we ran into this gate. We thought about it and ducked under it. We went a further 500m and turned up the "7FSR". We were well above the Cook Bay settlement.
The "7FSR" hasn't seen much recent activity.
It was a steep ride. We paid the full retail price to reach the main North-South "3FSR".
We had a beauty downhill ahead of us.
Rob's mechanical skills were put to a minor test with a rack issue.
We rode through mature second growth forest with moss everywhere. JRR Tolkein would have been impressed.
Flowy double-track
Anderson Bay, south end of Texada.
There is a nice campsite complete with a babbling brook at Anderson Bay
We had an afternoon ride on the southernmost roads of the island and came across this old truck.
We rode through private land to reach this point. The tracks down to the old homestead on South Texada Provincial Park were overgrown.
We were fueled up with coffee and tea for our early morning start.
It was a full-on hike-a-bike for a few sections. It was steeper than it looks.
We reached 600m and the edge of the upper plateau. We got spanked but were still smiling.
Steve couldn't pass up on an opportunity to sit down. These chairs were sitting by the side of the lightly traveled road.
The view towards Canada (the mainland), across Malaspina Channel
There was once a sizeable year-round whale population in the Salish Sea. When the Europeans arrived, they couldn't help themselves from extirpating them. Whaling stations were set up to strip the blubber and render it to oil. The legacy remains: Whaletown on Cortes, Whaling Station Bay on Hornby and Blubber Bay on Texada. Whales are now increasing in numbers, largely seasonal visitors.
We rode the lovely plateau area and stopped in on Angel Lake.
Bob's Lake has two recreation sites. It would be a nice place to camp.
The section down from Bob's Lake on Bell Road was a real ripper.
We didn't let the signs put us off Texada.
Central Road was smooth as silk and made for a fabulous descent.
Rob was making a good attempt to kick up a rooster-tail further along Central Road.
Saturday at the Van Anda general store. There was a woman out front selling fresh baked goods. We fueled up and bought a six pack for the road.
Cyclists and pedestrians get priority boarding on BC Ferries. This is the new flash Texada diesel/electric ferry.
After a ferry transfer at Powell River to Comox, we rode home. This was a small bit of gravel riding between Knight and Anderton roads.
Riding back along Dyke Road. Vancouver Island is sweet place to call home.
Awaiting a lucrative sponsorship deal
We all rode Cannondale Cujo (1,2 and 3) hard-tail mountain bikes and wore La Sportiva shoes.
