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Mount Tzouhalem: Full Loop

Vancouver Island

A long loop to the top of Mount Tzouhalem.

Mountain Biking Severe

Distance
8.5 km
Ascent
284 m
Descent
284 m
Duration
0-1 hrs
Low Point
249 m
High Point
487 m
Gradient
Mount Tzouhalem: Full Loop Map

This loop running all the way to the top of Mount Tzouhalem is one of the highest-value routes that you can pedal on the entire mountain.

Description

The climb begins on the forest service road, but instead of following the gravel road all of the way up, it climbs through a series of interconnected singletrack trails. This makes for slightly more difficult climbing, but it's a rewarding way to get up the hill.

Once at the top of Double D, you're in for even more uphill pedaling on Field of Dreams. Here the trail begins to get a bit rockier, and as you reach the summit of the mountain, the rocks come out in full force.

Be sure to pedal all the way out to one of the viewpoints to soak in the fantastic views off the top of the mountain. The views are reward enough for your efforts, but the downhill to come will also put a smile on your face!

The descent begins with a technical drop on the T-Bone trail. This is one of the rockier trails on the mountain and features some technical rock gardens, ledge drops, and built-up features. The biggest features on T-Bone can be bypassed. Eventually, you'll return to the top of Double D. The rest of this descent follows Double D to Fluid to Resurrection.

This trail is fast! While intermediate riders can roll down at a reasonable pace to fit their needs, advanced riders will be able to absolutely mach down this trail! The long sight lines, fantastic flow, and fairly steep grades in places will allow you to carry incredible speed down this entertaining descent. This is yet another feature that you don't often find on new school flow trails. Newer school trails are often built to control rider speed, but on Double D and Resurrection, it feels like you can just keep reaching for more!

Double D offers superb high-speed old-school flow trail riding. All of the corners feature substantial berms, although the size and the shape of the berms aren't consistent. Some are short and tight. Others are long and flowing. It feels like this trail was built without the aid of serious earthmovers, which means that the builders had to craft the flow to work with the lay of the land instead of being able to carve massive, sweeping corners out of the mountainside.

This route connects from Double D to Resurrection via Fluid. Fluid keeps the swoop and flow high, but it's a much more natural trail with a tighter trail tread and fewer berms. Take care to switch your riding style on Fluid, and then switch right back once you reach Resurrection.

Resurrection receives a black diamond rating, but it still isn't insanely difficult. Most of the jumps are mandatory gaps, but if you're not feeling any of them, it's quite easy to bypass the jumps entirely or take a smaller jump option. Thus, the black-diamond rating would apply if you were to hit all of the biggest features, but if you were to bypass the jumps, it rides more like an easy intermediate trail.

RideCowichan.com notes that, "the drops up top are great for beginners while further down the hits get bigger and serve as a good location for riders looking to work on their skills in the air. It should be noted that as these features vary in difficulty, it is not safe to assume that you can ride the rest of the features after doing the first drops. There are multiple lines to ride around all the obstacles on this trail."

Difficulty

Severe

Widely variable, narrow trail tread with steeper grades and unavoidable obstacles of 15in/38cm tall or less. Obstacles may include unavoidable bridges 24in/61cm wide or less, large rocks, gravel, difficult root sections, and more. Ideal for advanced-level riders.

High Exposure

3 out of 4

Some trail sections have exposed ledges or steep ascents/descents where falling could cause serious injury.

Remoteness

2 out of 4

Away from help but easily accessed.

Best time to visit

between February and November

Features

  • Flow
  • Technical
  • Picturesque
  • Singletrack
  • In the forest
  • Drops
  • Jumps
  • Roots
  • Gap Jumps
  • Tabletops
  • Rock Rolls
  • Rock Slabs
  • Rock Gardens
  • Wooden Feature

Similar routes nearby

Guidebooks in this area