Twin Sisters Traverse Bike-athon

Greg Luesink
Jun 14
7 min read

I'd seen many people scramble the Twin Sisters either individually or linked together in a traverse, and I had long admired the orangey dunite rock, reputable for it's exceptional grip and solid structure. Unfortunately, these wonderful peaks are blocked by a logging road gate at the bottom of a long FSR, forcing many to either hike or bike an additional 8km to and from the trailhead. Of course, most people opt to drive to the gated bridge and ride up on e-bikes, mountain bikes, or gravel bikes. I've enjoyed many bike-hikes in the past, as well as some bike-to-climb and even bike-to-ski adventures. Regardless of the destination, it is always a grand time spent suffering with friends and often my wife, Jas.

Recently, Ihor and I had biked to Bridal Falls, where we stashed our bikes before hiking up a new-to-us route (overgrown trail) up Cheam. It was about 40km to the bikes before hiking, and then a 28km, 2500m loop of Cheam and Archibald. This was a great fitness day on a new side of Cheam, and it was about an 12 hour day out after including 9 hours on the loop and biking there and back.

Another bike-scramble adventure I'd considered was the Twin Sisters Traverse down in Washington. Barred by a locked gate, most people end up biking the 8km FSR rather than hiking it, so I figured what's another 90km of riding to get there from Cultus? Ihor was game, and we bartered on a start time of 5 am in Sardis.

June 13th was inaugural Fraser Valley Climbing Festival with bouldering in Hope followed by a film night. Anyways, we got home at 11:30, so I was shutting my eyes at midnight... alarm set for just after 4 am.

I didn't give myself quite enough time to get out the door, and was a bit sluggish on the ride out. I texted Ihor and we finally met at 5:30 at the Vedder River to bike along Vedder Mountain into Yarrow and along Vye towards Sumas Border. We reached the crossing at around 7am, and got through without much of an issue. About this time, I had some... tummy trouble, which unfortunately plagued me for the remainder of the adventure. We pressed on, stopping at a gas station to buy some more food. I haven't succumbed to eating garbage in a while, but I bought two Snickers, a cheap sandwich, a gatorade, and some skittles. I don't think those helped my stomach issues (probably made it worse), but they did provide some much-needed energy for the next few hours. I drafted behind Ihor for the majority of the paved roads, I was feeling very off and was grateful for the "pull". Occasionally I would take a turn in front to let Ihor draft, but our efforts were disproportionate. Eventually, we reached the gravel road leading to the trailhead, which slowed our pace considerably. All of our fast'n'flat riding caught up to us, and we were faced with essentially all of our vert to climb at once, both on bike and on foot. As with many other parties, we got our bikes over the locked gate (logging) and continued up from the bridge at 400m elevation. The sun was scorching hot with no wind and clear skies as we climbed up the FSR. Hearing the sound of running water was the only thing that kept me going, and we soon found the source flowing off the mountainside. I dunked my head and shirt in the cold stream, and refilled my bottles, reviving me from my heat-stricken stupor.

Finally, after 100km of total riding, we reached the top of the 600m climb, stashing our bikes at the trailhead at ~1,000m elevation. We did a 15 minute transition to eat some food and switch into regular shorts and shoes before starting up the trail to South Twin at about 10:45 am, 6 hours after I left my house. We wound our way up through the trees, with many fallen on the trail to hop over and duck under. I was doing my best to keep up to Ihor, who didn't seem to be held back by his knee whatsoever. My knee was also feeling pretty good, but my body was fighting me the whole way up. We reached another stream where I filled my bottles and poured water over my head to cool down. I was starting to feel a bit better by the time we reached the base of the West ridge of South Twin.

We started scrambling at about noon, just over an hour after leaving the bikes. The rock was every bit as grippy and solid as the reports say online, making for fun and secure movement up the ridge. However, I will note that our hands were pretty torn up after this from heavy grit sandpaper-rock for the next few hours! We followed the ridgeline as best we could, dipping off either side to avoid towers or cliffs, and following the occasional rock cairn. The scrambling was engaging but nothing was too hard, mostly 3rd class with a move a 4th here and there. Finally, we reached the summit just before 1:30pm, about 2h45m after leaving the bikes. The views of Baker's southern glaciers was incredible, with clear skies in every direction.

The next step was to find a way off the summit, but we quickly noted that the East ridge looked a little too snow-covered for our liking. We contemplated retreating down our ascent ridge, but it didn't seem like it would be any faster than traversing the snow field to scramble up North Twin. Eventually, we settled on a rather loose and crumbly descent down the NE face of South Twin, dropping as low as possible to then kick steps down the snow. The upper section proved to be a bit too icy in spots, so we kept descending on loose choss past a rocky choke to gain the open slope below. I finally hopped onto the snow and began kicking steps back on soft snow. I got a little impatient and started to butt-slide with my ice-axe as a brake, but my glove-less hands got cold (and later I realized that I bludgeoned my knuckles open in the snow). Down below looked like a bergschrund, so I carefully approached the lip of it. It still had a snow bridge, so I couldn't tell if it was deep or not, and decided to make a leap over it, punching through with my leg as I landed. Tripped up, I did a somersault and regained my footing below, pausing to advise Ihor of the hazard. He hopped down too without much trouble and we continued kicking steps and butt-sliding down the steep face to the snowfield below.

Travel was easy once down on the snowfield, so we cruised our way towards North Twin. I forgot to download the GPX track, so we were eyeing up different lines to ascend. The SE ridge looked pretty spicy, while the profile of the North ridge looked quite reasonable. I just assumed that (what turned out to be) the North ridge was the route I had looked at online, so I directed our course for it. Gaining the ridge was a bit loose and sandy, but once we reached the ridgeline it was solid and cruisy. One move of exposed 4th-5th class along the way and lots of 3rd-4th class scrambling on the dunite rock led us to the summit by about 4 pm. We didn't have much time to dilly-dally so we snapped some photos and started descending the standard route of North Twin. This turned out to be much faster than South Twin, with easy scrambling and we soon reached a nice trail, which turned to wide open FSR all the way down to the bikes. It was about 5:20 when we reached the bikes, 6.5 hours after we left them. The Fastest Known Time (FKT) on this traverse (using the standard SE ridge route) is under 3 hours, which is insane!

We did a quick change back into our biking bibs, changing into dry shoes and socks as well. Back on our steeds by 5:30, we started blitzing down the FSR, which is exceptionally rideable compared to many gravel roads in BC. My brakes had been a little lackluster in the weeks prior, but I had forgotten to tighten them. As we rounded a particularly sharp and loose turn, I couldn't slow down enough, so my back wheel drifted out and dumped me off the bike. With nothing worse than a few scrapes, some dust, and wrecked bar tape, I hopped back on and we kept the pace a little slower down to the locked gate. The rest of our afternoon and evening pretty absurd, and I honestly am not sure how I was able to muster the energy to not only keep up to Ihor, but also take my fair share of pulls in our peloton riding. We stopped at the same gas station, and I refuelled with icecream bars, turkey wraps, and coca-cola. With renewed energy and zero wind, we were absolutely rocketing along Washington highways at 30-40kph, pulling each-other along in the draft of our bikes. We reached the border around 7:30pm, crossing over without hiccup. I knew that if I could force myself to bike the remaining 45kms home... but it would be about 10pm by the time I got back. With that realization, I had been texting Jas that it would be better for both of us (and our bedtime) if she picked me up on Vye Road. Ihor and I finished the 10km stretch on Vye to find Jas rolling up at the other end, meeting us just after 8pm. Ihor pressed on to his house in Sardis while I happily held hands with Jas as we drove off into the sunset.

It has been a few months since I have pushed so hard for such a long adventure, and I am really proud of what I was able to muster despite feeling less-than-myself for most of the day. I'll remember this feeling when I have to dig deep on other trips in the future. Many thanks to Ihor for his unwavering encouragement and positivity, I would have been much slower if not for him :)