Snow Tires Optional: Winter Riding at Galbraith Mt.
Two weekends ago, Seattlest took a trip to one of our favorite mountain biking areas, Galbraith Mountain outside Bellingham. Galbraith is a summer staple for us, but we've also found it holds up well even during the winter. One of our favorite aspects of living in Seattle is the ability to ditch the snow for a weekend if we want to--we may not boast Rocky Mountain snow conditions as a result, but we can do almost anything we want year round.
Galbraith is good for winter riding due to the generally milder conditions around Bellingham. Two other favorites are Green Mountain and a whole network of trails up near Anacortes connecting Cranberry, Whistle, and Heart lakes. All these trails benefit from rain shadows and terrain that drains suprisingly well; each is also no more than about 90 minutes from the Seattle area. In the dead of winter, this combination of factors can mean relatively dry trails when it is outright pouring in Seattle. However, while we expected relatively cold temperatures, and were dressed accordingly, we weren't expecting an inch and a half of snow at the top of the climb.
Galbraith has seen expansive growth in the size and complexity of its trails, making it one of the most varied and challenging places to ride in Western Washington. Thanks to the efforts of local trailbulding/advocacy organization the WHIMPS (Whatcom Independent Mountain Pedalers), new trails and features on trails are popping up with surprising regularity. And for a small local hill, Galbraith has a remarkably detailed site, with maps, trail/feature descriptions, and pictures galore. That, along with Bellingham local Kevin Unruh's site, is where you should go first if you're considering a ride up at Galbraith.
After the approximatley 3-mile, 1,000 foot climb, we found our favorite trails off the top of the climb had over an inch of snow on them. Along with sucking all body warmth from the climb nearly instantaneously, the conditions made our food break at the top extra-short (hard to eat beef jerky while actually jerky), and rendered the inital descent a bit treacherous. We bypassed the huge log ride to ramp jump at the end of Upper Scorpion since it was covered in ice, and took it pretty easy as we slip-slid down Evolution, which is a blast thanks to dirt jumps around nearly every turn. From there we made another quick climb back up to find Dan's trail, which has a few mellow log/ladder bridges and some nice drops; it ends with a section called "The Luge" and you can imagine why. Banked turn after banked turn, with a few kicker jumps along the way for extra fun. After that is one last punishing fire-road climb backtracking to Shawn's trail; it was at this point we realized that seeing the end of this ride was going to require more willpower than we'd originally hoped. Trekking around Galbraith on our 41-pound freeride bike was taking its toll...
Once we got to Shawn's trail, we'd dropped below the snow line, and also discovered a new section off the main trail. It had a banked turn running into a good-sized tabletop jump, followed almost immediately by a perfectly bermed naturally-occuring rock wall ride. Our fearless financee is shown at right on the rock wall, which in reality was much steeper than this picture gives credit for. Also on Shawn's trail, we discovered a relatively new stunt that we had to agree was properly torn down. Take a look at a picture of it, which really should be captioned "Insert bike into slot A, break collarbone at point B."
From Shawn's trail we made our way back down Cedar Dust, which was a part of our original climb up. This trail has received significant attention over the past few months by the WHIMPS, and is finally a real treat to ride again--a great place to practice riding skinny bridges, ladders, and rock drops. The last trail we hit was Bob's trail, a definitive favorite with tons of swoopy, banked turns and a few technical areas sprinkled in. By this point, Seattlest had lost the will to live, rapidly approaching bonk terrain. We made our way down like a drunk driver, ekeing out just barely enough energy to make the wobbly march back to the car.
