Any road that travels eastwards from the south coast through to the interior has to punch through the formidable coast mountain range. Most of these routes are busy—ie Highway 3 through Manning Park, or Highway 5 up the Coquihalla. There are a couple of roads I can think of that are quieter—from Bella Coola up Heckman Pass is one but it is rather remote, and another is the Duffey Lake Road from Pemberton to Lillooet.
I decided to ride the Duffey to Lillooet and back as a 200k day ride. As it happens, it is almost exactly 100k’s from Pemberton to Lillooet, and as an added bonus, the navigation is very simple, as this is an out and back with no opportunity to go astray. The Duffey is also quiet traffic wise, as the steep grades are no doubt off-putting for most commercial traffic. Also, there are no services at all on the road: No gas stations, no mini-malls, no restaurants, no towns or settlements, no traffic lights, no nothing really. Just a lot of mountains, glaciers, streams, and forests. In other words, it is a fantastic road. The highway warning signage gives an indication of the unique environment: steep grades! check brakes! avalanche zone! rockfall! To top it off, one particularly large sign warned of grizzly bears (no, I did not see any).
The distance is not the real challenge with this ride—it is the elevation, and the topo graphic tells the whole story. Ride with GPS gave an elevation gain of 3674m, and Strava was a bit more generous at 3889m. One way or another, it’s a lot.
The ride begins with a pancake flat warm-up spin through the Pemberton valley bottom. Then just as your legs are warming up and you’re settling into a nice rhythm; the road suddenly veers up the side of the mountain. The climb is about 13 kms and gains nearly 1300 m, with grades up to around 12%. Even in the granny gear, you need to push to get up this thing. By the time I got to Joffre Lakes, I could see my breath, my fingers were getting cold and I was happy I had chosen to wear full length tights and not shorts. When the clouds occasionally parted, fresh snow was visible on nearby peaks. From Joffre, the road trends downhill pretty much all the way to Lillooet. This made for some very fun, easy cruising along at 40kph. In the back of my mind, I was wondering what it was going to be like coming back, but I tried not to think about it.
The transition from the lush coastal side of the mountains to the dry, scrubbier eastern side happens quite quickly. Over the course of about 20kms, the trees transition to shorter Ponderosa Pines, and sage starts to show up on the hillsides. Even the colour of the rock changes. As the road begins to get closer to Lillooet, the broad valley tightens up and squeezes into a spectacular canyon with Cayoosh Creek raging through the bottom. The road through the canyon is a fast, eye-watering technical descent with hairpin corners–fortunately the pavement is in good condition. Then the road spits you out into the low rolling hills of Lillooet, and you really get to appreciate that a bike is a great way to cover a lot of territory quite efficiently.
I stopped just long enough in Lillooet to enjoy a vanilla milkshake and refill the water bottles, courtesy of Deoro Café (highly recommended). The only other bikers I saw the whole day were in Lillooet, but they were wearing Hell’s Angels vests, so I did not stop to chat.
As soon as I pointed back to Pemberton, I felt a sporting headwind. Considering that it was pretty much uphill all the way to Joffre Lakes, this meant that I would be riding steadily uphill for about 70kms into a gusty headwind. There is something uniquely discouraging about working really hard to grind uphill at 7 or 8 kph for hours on end. A couple of times, I had to get off the bike and just stand on the side of the road to take a mental break. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect this headwind is pretty common, especially in summer. But the spectacular scenery was a nice distraction, and eventually I rolled back into the Joffre Lakes parking lot. From Joffre, it’s another screaming descent to get back to the valley bottom, and then flat easy riding as a reward at the end of the day.
This is a truly spectacular and memorable ride, but it does come with some unique challenges to be aware of: there are no services and no water available, so either carry lots or consider bringing some sort of water purification to treat lake or creek water; there is no cell service; the weather can be unpredictable and extreme (heat and cold).
