A Day at Sol Mountain Lodge
In early August of 2023, my partner Chloe and I loaded the bikes on the top of the old Subaru Outback and headed to the heart of the Monashee Mountains to ride the trails built by Sol Mtn. Lodge. The summer prior, we went on a hiking trip into Monashee Provincial Park, where we briefly hiked the South Caribou Pass Trail to summit Mount Fosthall. When we saw all the people with bikes riding in this epic alpine environment, it became a no-brainer to come back the following year with our bikes.
We left Kelowna and drove through Revelstoke and south along Upper Arrow Lake to find a home for the night at Blanket Creek Provincial Park. The following morning, we got up early and headed for Sol Mtn. Lodge. The road went from a smooth highway to a double-lane forest service road to a steep, switch-backing single-lane road with death drops off the edge. The Subaru handled it with grace, and we found ourselves at the public parking lot with a handful of other bikers getting kitted up for the day.
The climb trail starts winding through the forest until you break into the sub-alpine where the lodge is situated. From there, you begin the phase of the trail where you need to decide how much you want to focus on the technical climbs and how much you need to focus on the never-ending epic views of the Monashee Mountains. There are a handful of options to ride at the Lodge, but we chose to do the South Caribou Pass Trail. I would call this a cross-country trail, as it ascends and descends frequently, with both directions being quite fun if you’re the type who likes a good climb.
We pedalled and flowed our way up to the pass, where we stopped for a little break and took in the views of Big Peters Lake and a cornucopia of peaks on the northern horizon before turning around. It is not often that I ride an out-and-back cross-country trail. Everything that was a climb becomes a descent, and everything that was a descent becomes a climb. I think I liked the return better. Once we arrived back at the junction point between the South Caribou Pass trail and all the other trails, we took a little detour up to Sol Lake, where we went for a swim to cool off. From the lake, we descended back to the lodge and took a deviation from the Bunny Slope trail to ride a big slab line, which might have been my riding highlight from the day. After the slabs, the terrain mellowed out a ton, and we moseyed on down to the car, where we cooked up some ramen before driving back to our camp at Blanket Creek.
