Mont Gosford day two - bike day

Sentier Mont Gosford


OK, maybe the rain isn't all bad.


This is the place. The hard starts as soon as the trail enters the forest


Summit of Mont Gosford is in clouds behind this ridge.


We came back to Mont Gosford on Sunday. The blue sky was gone. Rain was forecast. We figured we'd ride until it stopped being fun.

We parked at the accueil, and rode in the same access road as before. First stop was the new velo-montagne trails.

We would like to say we rode these trails, but we can't because there was plenty of walking going on. The 2nd-half/return part of the loop was better, but we are a bit short on the technical skills required for low-speed uphill technical terrain.

Getting back to the road after we had finished the trail, we noticed that it was raining but it was a superfine light rain, and we figured we'd keep the promise and ride the bike up the forest roads to the Refuge Clearwater. We knew where it was, but we didn't know how far it was. We knew it was uphill too. With this information, we pedaled. And pedaled, and pedaled some more. At the 2:40 point of riding we were getting as bit rough (even with having eaten two breakfasts!) and we were wondering where is this %$##@ refuge?

We agreed that if it didn't show up by 3 hours of riding time, we'd u-turn and come back on a sunnier day. At 2:55 there was the hut!

We went inside to warmth from a toasty fire in he stove. We inhaled some food and got all our clothes on for the descent. Wind chill would be our nemesis, so we covered up well.

Then we descended and descended some more until we were back at the entrance and the car.

Woohoo!

Lucky for us there was a bike wash station, so we hosed off the mud from the bike and ourselves, and got cleaned up and rejoined civilization.