Clover's 10 Lakes Hog's Back Lap

Photographer and bikepacker Clover Fedoriuk-Russell recently toured Powell River's 10 Lakes route, and told us all about the trip, the route, and her new bike!

I’ve mostly owned toodle-around-town, half rusted vintage road bikes, but it wasn’t until I moved from a sleepy surf town to the mountains that I really threw myself into the beauty of two wheels. Half interest, half necessity of finding an activity that wasn’t surfing, bikes have been a recent and full identity shift. After having a low quality, intro gravel bike, I decided to up my game and set out on building up a bike for myself. I was searching for something vintage looking, but modern. Something with flash but not too flashy. I wanted the style of a retro road bike, with the ease and flair of modern components that I could take anywhere and could handle most off-road missions. After what felt like months of scouring the internet, I finally found the Hog’s Back. There she was, 54cm with a bright orange decal, waiting in her Sandy Beige glory. So started I my bike build. And needless to say, building a bike is pretty fun. The tinkering, tailoring and fine tuning turned out to be some of the more frustrating, but rewarding parts. And after a few days of taking things apart and putting them back together again, my dream bike was finished, and trip planning started.

I grew up on the coast of British Columbia, always driving and rushing around from town to town and fighting to escape the summer tourism chaos. As much time as I have spent in the coastal towns and the tiny islands between them, I have never properly slowed down and explored the familiar corners of the BC coast. Qathet (also known as Powell River) was once a stopover town, but much of my family lives there now, which encourages me to spend time in this hard to get to area. It wasn’t until I started taking cycling more seriously that I really got to explore Qathet and other coastal places the way they are meant to be seen - with two feet and a heartbeat.

The Powell River 10 Lakes Overnighter is a 1-2 night loop following a dusty logging road that circumnavigates the Smith Range and Tin Hat Mountain. Still active, the logging road has call points, working trucks, and mid week rec site traffic. I think that I can speak to most environmentally minded people, that logging roads and rec sites hold an incredibly opposing place in outdoor activity. Remote recreation sites on picturesque lakes, away from society, unplugged from your daily life allow for serene presence with nature, but are only made possible to access through cut blocks and logging roads - a reminder of the long and controversial logging industry of British Columbia. But that debate is for another time.

Qathet is a historical blue collar town seemingly stuck in time. It is tucked away in the middle of Qathet Regional District on the West Coast of British Columbia. With unbelievable sunsets and the cutest old houses that you’ll ever find, Qathet is cut off by water on three out of four directions, and is a challenging place to get to no matter which direction you start from. But the perk of being far from the stresses of a bustling epicentre is the calm that a small, artful community invites in. Qathet is home to an underground punk scene, a bubbling outdoors community, not to mention some of the best samosas that I have ever had. And isn’t that the key to bike packing? To escape the noise and find the best snacks.

The 10 Lakes Overnighter takes you on a Forest Service Road, skipping along a series of lakes, up and down the dusty road with more than enough choices for a summer dip. We set out from downtown Qathet and made our way to the FSR past Duck Lake. The road was mostly cruisey and we were lucky that it looked to have been graded the week before. This meant an easier time on my 700x40c tires, which handled well enough trying to keep up speed on the rocky downhills. Initially we planned on completing the route over two nights, but the recently graded road and the handfuls of trail mix helped us power through the dusty 100km loop. Going counterclockwise, the first part of the loop is nothing to write home about. The wide road is a nice ride, but gives no reprieve from the 35 degree afternoon sun. After four hours of riding through the hottest part of the day, we chose the next rec site of Nanton Lake as our first lake dip.

Nanton Lake was a smaller goose-filled lake with old growth stumps scattering the waterside that held an eerie reminder of an elephant graveyard. But we found a nice picnic spot and we were happy for the cool off beside some buzzing bees and wildflowers. We checked on our route and decided that Dodd Lake would be our destination for that night. The Powell Lakes Loop has so many spots to dip into the woods and camp, that we really didn’t have a particular plan heading into the adventure - our goal for the trip was to test our gear, unplug from the world, and drink coffee by a lake.

After a few more hours of riding, we arrived at Dodd Lake just in time for an evening swim. Thanks to a welcoming neighbour, we set up camp in one of my favourite camp sites to date. Tucked between the trees and the lake, we forgot about the long, hot ride that some might only see as type two fun. After we unloaded our gear and pitched our tent, we went for a celebratory ride around the campsite. We came across a group of Powell River locals that drove past us on the logging road several hours before, with an expression that could only say “What the heck are these two up to?!”. They had driven their 35ft trailer up there to get the best spot for their weekend camp trip, and when I told them we biked “just from downtown,” they laughed and I could see they thought we were bonkers. Still, they offered us a cold one and we went off to check out a little lakeside trail that was hard to miss.

The Powell River 10 Lakes Loop is also home to a popular canoe trail that takes you through the lakes. There are a few sections that the water doesn’t connect, and travellers need to portage their canoes between the bodies of water. We followed an incredibly fun and beautiful single track portage trail through the sunset to nearby Ireland Lake. I think that ride was the highlight of the day. Back at camp, we searched around for a bear cache, only to end up stuffing our HMPL bar bag with our food and stringing it up the tallest branch we could find.

After a peaceful and moonlit sleep, unplugged from service and reality, with only the buzzing bees and the unforgettable sound of the Swainson’s Thrush to bring in the daylight, we had a couple slow coffees and packed up camp to beat the afternoon heat. Not too far down the road, we encountered another portage trail. A bit over the tenacity required of a dusty logging road, we decided to test our luck, hoping it would be like the last trail we so pleasantly encountered. After a few twists, turns and big roots, I felt bad for the campers that trekked by us with their canoes overhead, huffing it up and down the hilly and winding trail, avoiding old growth stumps and mossy mother logs. I also missed the predictability of the logging road, but was happy to have a break from the already too hot heat.

Once we came to the end of the slow, steep trail, the need for speed kicked in and we raced down the road to catch up on lost time. Powering through, I was impressed at the fully loaded bike’s capacity to wind through potholes and the chunky grown-in FSR. A few lakes over, we took a short downhill and found ourselves at a secret hut pleasantly named “Pog’s Place.” Quiet and off the main road, we were more than happy to sit on the dock and munch on apples and cheese to our hearts' desire.

After a few hours, the sun was at its hottest point and we thought it would be a great time to make our way home. After stopping off at the next creek for water, we rode through the late afternoon, dreading the final hill. All I could do for this part of the day was check our GPS to gauge how big the hill was and how I was going to convince myself to not walk up it. Two things helped in this, one - GPS is sometimes wildly inaccurate which boded in our favour, and two - we were on a mission with Ice Cream as the prize. With nearly 15km left of our 100km ride, it felt good to get back on pavement again. The ride was short but sweet and hot but fun. Testing out the Bassi frame on some pretty typical terrain for the BC coast, it’s safe to say that my dream bike can handle that heat and dust, but still look cute as heck on its way to a well deserved ice cream at the end of a ride.

Clover followed the route researched and published by Natalie Jones and Bikepacking.com