Working my way up the green climber Greasy Jungle for another lap, I realized the math doesn’t make sense.
The Wells Gray website says the Candle Creek bike trail system, located just outside the town of Clearwater, B.C., has 28 km of flowy fun. The Wells Gray Outdoor Club, which has built and maintains the Candle Creek trails, says on its website there is a combination of 7.3 km of green trails, 12 km of blue and 3 km of black—so a little more than 22. But the 16 trails listed on the sign at the trailhead totals 33 km. According to Trailforks, Candle Creek has 22 trails, but lists only 19. I pulled up my knee pads, rolled into Brain Shake and made a mental note to get to the bottom of this.
“We got original approvals and funding back in 2013, and began building in 2014,” says mountain bike trails committee member Aaron Cooperman. “Our primary intention was to develop trails for locals and create a riding community. And what do you know, if you build trails, people start getting into it.”
The Wells Gray Outdoors Club’s community-focused approach to trail development is working. Club president and local high school teacher, Darren Coates, says they now have more than 70 active card-carrying riders. Far more local individuals and families drop in a few times a summer, not to mention people from out of town, like me.
While community development was the original plan, Tourism Wells Gray is putting Candle Creek on the mountain biking map. Clearwater has joined Vast and Flowy, a clever play on words for a mountain bike trail marketing consortium including nearby Kamloops and Williams Lake. Turns out, the same thoughtful trail building and trail management that works for creating community also makes for a sweet place to visit and ride.
“We started with a clean slate able to meet the new standards. We set maximum and average grades for the builders,” Coates told me. “We wanted to make the most of our vertical. And we’re a small club; we don’t have the resources to fix trails that are too steep.”
If your jam is old-school fall-line jank, you won’t find it in Clearwater. There is hardly a braking bump in the entire network.
“We wanted to establish something unique. We needed variety and options for locals to not get bored. The goal was to only build quality trails,” Cooperman says. “We focused on true natural-feeling singletrack, even though most of it is built by machine. We’ve worked with builders like Dave…
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