Clearwater’s Finely Crafted Trails

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 Biggin-Pound from Revelstoke who gets it—he really cares.”

This makes sense to me. Biggin-Pound’s UTC—Ultimate Frisbee Connector—trail in Revelstoke rides the same—poppy root berms, natural step-ups and step-downs, clever rocks rolls—designed with just the right entry speed, no brakes necessary.

In 2017, when the community asked the Outdoor Club for a jump trail of their own, it created Fat Lip with the help of George Brcko, manager of the Wells Gray Community Forest Corporation.

The Wells Gray Outdoor Club and the Wells Gray Community Forest share the same chunk of Crown land. Instead of a turf war over natural resources like in so many regions, in Clearwater the two organizations work together.

“We’re fortunate to have a non-profit sharing our tenure,” Cooperman says. “They want to do good for the community. Some of the people on the Community Forest board members ride the trails.”

In fact, roughly half of the $600,000 trail development funding has come from Wells Gray Community Forest. Before trails are built, Brcko and the trail committee walk the proposed route. When sections are logged, trees are flagged and left to border and protect the integrity of the trails. Also, Wells Gray Community Forest lent a hand with their big equipment to pile dirt for the 20 jumps and berms needed to create Fat Lip.

“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.”

That jump line is perfect for a few fun laps after work or school. It’s rated a black, but the bottom half is really a blue with lots of small beginner jumps. Don’t be pumping for more speed. Come in too hot and sendy like I did on the first lap and you’ll be overshooting the transitions. This is a community trail network after all. All the features are friendly and rollable.

“We think for the community, we have a good mix of trails,” Cooperman says. “All but a few black trails are two-way trails, giving the network twice the kilometres of trails and more loop options.”

The other thing I noticed is that Clearwater feels true to grade.

There are two ways to rate new government-funded trail builds in British Columbia. You either downgrade things, but may include features one grade higher. An example is calling a trail blue even though it has some black features. Or, you rate a trail for its hardest features, even though the rest could be the grade below. Clearwater has done the latter, which makes sense to me when you’re building a community trail network.

The greens are really green by design, to get more people into biking. Pub Feed, Brain Shake, Higher Ground and Fat Lip are all black trails but ones I think most blue trail riders can enjoy.

So what’s the best way to enjoy Candle Creek?

My first afternoon, I parked at the upper parking area and climbed Fiddlers Green and then Greasy Jungle all the way to an intersection that feels like the top. Here you’ll find a stainless-steel dog bowl and a few benches to catch your breath and contemplate your options.

I chose Brain Shake, a piece of old schoolish singletrack over rock rolls, ladders, log rides and small drops. Brain Shake is black but everything rolls or rides around and it’s way more fun and flowier than the name suggests. If that’s all the time you have, rip the Fat Lip jump line back to the truck.

If I lived in Clearwater, Pub Feed would be my after-work special. It’s the trail I’d tell friends they need to ride when they come to town. It enters off Road 90—so it can be shuttled—from a wood roller drop. There are jumps, rocks, rolls, roots, step-ups, step-downs. It’s like they took everything fun about trail riding and strung it together on a 2.2-km-long Christmas garland and then laid it gently upon the lower part of Raft Mountain.

Coming down from the upper trails or as part of your lower loop, I insist you ride down Raft Rim. Maybe that trail could provide you more time to enjoy the canyon view over Raft River, but I wouldn’t know. I’ve never actually taken in the view. The trail is too fun to ride down. You’ll see. Raft Rim is also the only trail in this network not named after a song, or at least a song on Spotify. Yes, I searched for it.

Ten years after the first shovel made the first berm, the Wells Gray Outdoor Club has a network worthy of a weekend road trip. I asked Coates and Cooperman what’s next?

“After asking around the com-munity, we think we are missing an accessibility trail for hand cyclists and young children,” Coates says. “We’d use the area around our green Swamp Loop trail.”

The other really big dream is another descending trail from the ridge you can see from top of Pub Feed. It would add another 5 or 6 km to the network.

“It would be awesome, but also expensive,” Coates says. “Six kilometres of trail at $30 to $40 per metre could be a $200K-build by the time we get funding.”

By the time you read this, the math about the amount of trails in Clearwater won’t matter. The Outdoor Club already has approvals and contracts in place with builders for the spring. They will be adding another 600 m of climbing to Higher Ground that will get them to 1,120 m of elevation, and adding 300 m to the top of Pub Feed. That adds up to more biking to discover in Clearwater, no matter what math you’re using.

Details

How to get there
The town of Clearwater—the gateway to the Wells Gray Provincial Park, as they say—is pretty much in the middle of the bottom half of British Columbia. It’s 90 minutes north on Highway 5 up the scenic North Thompson River Valley from the iconic riding of Kamloops and just two hours south of the Valemount Bike Park. Williams Lake is 2.5 hours to the west.

Where to stay
In 2021, Recreation Trails and Sites B.C. added the Raft Rim sites at the bottom of the trail network overlooking Raft River Canyon. Here you’ll find six tent sites, picnic tables, washrooms and donation boxes for your $15-per-night contribution. Don’t carry cash like me? Payments can be made by e-transfer to payments@wellsgrayoutdoorsclub.ca

I’ve also stayed at Cedar Haven Resort in cabins and luxurious glamping tents. It’s located just outside the trail network boundary on Barber Road. Book early, before the European waterfall hikers come to town. Or, download the Tourism Wells Gray Visitor’s Guide (wellsgray.ca/plan/visitor-guide) for a list of eight hotels, 23 B&Bs, five full-service fancy resorts or 784 nearby camp and RV sites. You get the idea; there’s no reason to sleep in your car.

Where to eat and drink
Clearwater has the usual roadside fast-food chain restaurants lining the highway, if you must. Trust me, you’d rather have the brisket at Hop N Hog Tap & Smokehouse (hopnhog.ca), the bacon and blue cheese burger at Gateway Grill (gatewaygrill.ca), the homemade bratwurst at Clearwater Stop, the traditional breakfast at the Wells Gray Inn (also the liquor store and local bar), and fancy coffees, fresh bread and treats at the Wild Flour Cafe Bakery (wildflourcafe.ca).

Scott MacGregor is the founder and former publisher of Paddling Magazine. The Clearwater trails are all song titles, except one. He’s created Spotify playlists, ordered in how he thinks the trails are best ridden. Search in Spotify for Clearwater Bike Trails.