MONTE COLA ON ICE

Rossland has it's own version of Whistler's A-Line. Fortunately it is not lift served and really quite remote but packed with just as much fun. Tuesday night was the nicest evening in a while and the Holy Wow Gang decided to give Monte Cola a try even though there was a chance that we would have to make our way through some snow. This spring just will not warm up.

There is a lovely piece of climbing single track called Larch Trail. This is the trail that you follow to get to the top of Monte Cola. On the way up, we picked up the ice(snow) for this wonderful Cola drink. Judging by the laughter coming from the riders as they made their wet disk brakes sound like Canadian geese honking to each other, the climb was quite tolerable( KCTS -Kootenay Columbia Trails Society has done a superb job of eliminating some of the ugly pitches that used

to adorn this ascent), but maybe someone had already added a little rum to the Iced Monte Cola drink. Anyway, we arrived at the trail head in excellent spirits.

Now the real fun starts. This trail is full of natural whoop-dee-doos, banked corners, and table tops. Unfort

unately, from a video stand point, everyone was having too much fun to stop, so when I stopped to shoot a piece of video near the top, I never again got ahead of the bunch to film the part of the trail that rivals A-Line. Oh well, I was having too much fun to stop myself. If this trail wasn't already named Monte Cola, I would lobby to call it R-Line(the R standing for Real or Rossland). What a blast. Check out this short clip below.

R-Line, still feels like mountain biking. You still have to ride up to get to the trail head, no chairlifts in the vicinity. The forest and the wild is all around, signified by the moose droppings

and hoof marks that adorned the trail. We are truly sharing this trail. It is not wide enough to pass, so you have to stop and smell the moose dung for a while and then see if you can catch the rider ahead of you. Hopefully you don't catch up to the moose because it will win the encounter, should you co

me face to face. A real mountain bike outing. HOLY WOW!!!

If we weren't already drunk from the climb, Monte Cola sure completed the mission, because we were inebriated by the audacity of its vertical. The beers after the ride had little effect on spirits that were already soaring and primed to howl at the moon.