Ride Report - Terrace to Kincolith (pix)

[KaiBosh]

Every day dozens of bikes filter through the Bulkley Valley on their way through to Highway 37 and parts yonder. Little do they know how close they are coming to (and missing) an incredible ride just out of their way. Part of me wants to put up signs, stand on the side of the road jumping up and down, setting up cones and forcing them into the area I am about to describe. Of course, part of me wants to keep it secret and all to myself.

Just on the Prince Rupert end of Terrace an innocuous road turns right up towards the college, a well groomed cemetery, and cute little subdivisions leading up into the bush outskirts of populace thrusting up the Nisga'a valley. It is called the 'Nisga'a Highway' (113). For the first 25 miles, the road is nice and twisty but well populated and in rather rough shape - a B road by every definition with frost heaves, patchiness, and general disrepair waiting around every corner. The bush grows right up to the road, and you will find yourself getting more and more out of the areas in which people live so keep an eye out for deer along here.

25 miles up sits Rosswood, a community of a handful of people at most. Right before entering the metropolis of this little hamlet there is a tiny turnout on the right, with a local piece of history called the 'pissing tree'. This is an excellent place to stop and gather your wits because things are about to get interesting. Right out of town the road suddenly takes a magical turn for the better. This entire section from here to the end of the lava beds was repaved 3 years ago, and it is still in absolutely perfect shape.

The road heats up with a few quick corners, a few nice straights, and soon you are along a lake and swerving nicely with little bunches of twisty bits that slowly get twistier as you progress. A brief respite and then you come to another run along a lake, it is in this several kilometres that you will find some of the nicest corners in a 1000 miles. The visibility is always good, there is rarely so much as a speck of sand on the road, and the surface is impeccable. Concrete barriers line the road most of the way, you don't want to crash here so the key is smooth execution and blistering corner exits. The most extreme corners are usually through a dip, but banked so nicely that traction is never a concern no matter how deep you dig on the fun handle.

Check this out:

[KaiBosh]

Once at the end of this set of twisties, you hit the lava beds. If you haven't seen these before it is quite a treat, and there are wondrous hotspots all over the place here with sparkling green pools and waterfalls crashing through weird rock. The road continues to squirm northward, now through the desolate lava beds themselves. Curiously almost every bridge in this entire area is a single lane affair, most have excellent visibility but keep your peepers open for oncoming traffic.

After a bit you will come to a crossroads - to the right a small community called New Aiyansh lays about 6 miles away and it is here that you will find the only gas for sale you can count on. So head into town and filler'up, then head back west for another leg in this awesome treat of a road. You will be heading for Greenville now, another stretch of road finished in the last year or two that winds along the river heading for the coast. After escaping the lava beds you will purr along until you get the bridge across the river, and it is from this point on that things get hot for the duration. The road to Kincolith was a nasty, sealcoated affair for many years, but last summer they started repaving it and this summer they have finished the last 20km or so at most a couple of days before I rode. We are talking about blacktop so fresh there are no lines, no concrete (yet) and the nastiest rollercoaster of a road heading out to the coastal clambake known as Kincolith.

This road twists and turns to crazy degrees, up and down over extreme humps and drops as a narrow amusement park on 2 wheels. Some of the corners are so extreme that you simply can't ride hard, and for example one hill is a %16 grade (no typo) with a corner halfway down - whoa! There is no gas in Kincolith, so plan to ride out there and then back to New Aiyansh (about 70km apart) before heading back down the lava bed run.

Check out these pix from the Kincolith run:

[KaiBosh]

There are no boring parts to this entire run. It is all slick and tight, with awesome scenery and a cool flavour as you drop down to the ocean and step into an old community that spent decades only accessible by boat. I never once saw a popo on the road but be warned that they are up there, a surprisingly large detachment sits just outside New Aiyansh and I saw 6 suburbans parked there - they cover all the reserves in the area and no doubt put a lot of miles in every direction. The speed limits can be strange, for no reason other than corners there will be stretches of 70 or 80 kph in the middle of nowhere, be aware that toodling through these corners at 130 and getting caught will net you a large ticket so keep your eyes open at all times.

For wildlife keep your brake covered wherever bush runs right up to the road, expect deer on the first haul up to Lava lake and then when you make the run to Kincolith expect everything and anything. I saw 6 grizzlies that looked like they stepped out of a postcard and at least 20 huge black bears, some as a black blur in the bush out of the corner of my eye while I was laying it down through a tight corner. The bears are generally quite smart, they won't jump in front of you by choice and get off the road when they hear the angry buzz of a bike. Bear poop litters the stretch all the way to the coast from the turnoff, you definitely get the sensation that you are in a whole other world up here.

Up towards Kincolith you don't want to go off the road - on one side the ocean awaits to send you to Davey Jone's locker, and on the other a yawning canyon plunges down to razor sharp boulders littered up against cliffs so it definitely wouldn't be a happy ending no matter how or where you hit the toolies. In this entire area keeping things smooth is the key to keeping things rubber side down - the surface is perfect, the curves are nicely banked, and the transitions are tight but not too tight. Stick to your line and punch out of the corners in prep for the next.

As far as weapons for the job at hand, a crotch would be well applied but I was able to amuse myself on my modest steed: hehehheee...

[KaiBosh]

Bonus Review #1: 2 days before heading out for my local mecca I had a pair of brand new Pilot Roads shoehorned onto my baby, so they were scuffed up and ready for the real thing by the time I hit the highways along the lava beds. Going from the BT-020's it took a little while to get used to these tires but it doesn't take long to get the hang out how they operate.

The Pilot roads have a very rounded front, to a degree that some people have found they lack any feeling of 'falling into' a corner. Some people combine a pilot road rear with a 2CT or a power on the front as a result. At first I found the tires vague, uncertain and wandering slightly on the front end. This seemed to go away as I put some miles on, and now I don't notice this at all. I certainly did notice the fact that they don't want to fall into a corner. You almost need to be a little persistent to push the bike over, and at first this bothered me but as the day wore on up the Nisga'a I learned their true design, and started to love them. Yes, they are stubborn to fall in - but what they lack in initial feel they more than make up for with rock solid consistent holding of a line, and pure smooth transitions from side to side. At no point do you have a change in the way they roll, they simply do the same thing at all points of the arc. Once I was used to it I loved it, it was like putting a steering damper on the front end. Even on the unsettled portions of pavement they stuck like glue, and I never lacked confidence either on the front end stuffing it into a tight corner or on the back end rocketing out of one. I was putting more and more throttle into corner exits, with my bike I have ferocious jump on demand and never once did I even think twice about pulling the trigger even while still leaned over quite a bit. Needless to say my chicken strips were taken down to practically nothing with little effort on roads like this.

Bonus Review #2: In the picture of my bike above you can see the Icon tank bag that converts to a packsack able to carry a helmet in a net underneath. This is the first time I have used it, I was testing my new theory of overnighting with just a large tank bag and the appreciable amount of trunk space I have with a kit that goes along with running pods. The tank bag is large, so large that I was amazed at what I could stuff into it when I really wanted to. The side pockets are also quite nicely sized for stuff that you want easily at hand. The magnets are big, and very strong, although with the amount of weight I had in it (lot of heavy stuff, including a Xena X15) the bag would slide into my lap when I would drop the hammer as hard as I could out of tight corners. The material of the bag is nice and tough, but after using it for a couple of days I really got the idea that the zippers are the weak point of this thing. The zippers themselves are cheap, and you will have to take extreme care of all of them or you will have nagging problems sooner than you would like. I never tested the bag as a backpack but the clasps and straps all seem up to the task. If anything this bag might be too big, even on my gargantuan tank with large, wide handlebars I felt uncomfortable doing u-turns on the road when my hands would get crunched into the bag and screw me up. Because of that I had to keep the bag further back than you would think it should sit, not a problem and it made for a nice place to lean when 'passing people safely' on the open road.

[KaiBosh]

One last thing, from my place in Houston I obviously had to pass through the spot where the slide happened this side of Terrace. There isn't much to look at anymore, they have cleared off the road and areas to either side so although you can plainly see up the mountain where it all came from they are almost done with cleanup. Unfortunately the creek that ran here was buried and as a result it is trickling over the road across this entire 300' long stretch, and with the machines still running over the road all day long they have ground all the dirt here into a fine white muck that sprays up no matter how slow you take this bit.

The road is open to alternating traffic from 6am to 10pm still, it is closed at night and probably will be for a little while yet. They are done with the road but they need to create a whole new ditch and place for the creek to run yet. Spooky to think about the older couple that was caught in the slide...

ps. Here is a link with a lot more info about the Nisga'a Highway, it is outdated as far as the road conditions go because all the paving has been done in the last year or two (or day or two!) http://modena.intergate.ca/personal/pl8s/BCNH/NH_A.htm

[Brendan]

That's it .. you talked me into it .. I'm heading up !!

[newbusa]

Shhhhhhhh!Please don't tell everybody about our little secret.:D Of the 6 times i have been up there in the last year,I have had only one ocasion when i have run into a police car,And he waved:noevil So i see they finally got the last section to Kincolith repaved?

[KaiBosh]

Yeah the road has been paved right to town - the pix I took of blacktop were looking in either direction from the sign that welcomes you to town just before you drop into it.

The only thing they didn't repave was that %16 hill - no doubt because the ashpalt would have oozed down in a big lump!

[SpookyjacK]

Now that's what I call a ride report very well done and nice pics too......

[Slug87]

I rode the 'Nisga'a Highway' a couple of years ago, and I was blown away. I did carry on to the nass valley and had my first real off road experience there.
Amazing country. The lava beds were an awesome site.

That highway was so smooth and with so little traffic. A true dream.

http://www.gstouring.com/wpImages/05Alaska/BikeNass.jpg
This was along the Nisga'a highway. Early June 2005.

http://www.gstouring.com/wpImages/05Alaska/LavaBed.jpg
A view of the lava beds. This is a pretty impressive site to go through.

http://www.gstouring.com/wpImages/05Alaska/VisitorCenterLavaBed.jpg
The visitor center at the lava bed provincial park. Short peoples lives there ;-)

http://www.gstouring.com/wpImages/05Alaska/NassForestServiceRoad.jpg
What that nass valley raod to cranberry junction looks like. 51 km of huge potholes and wilderness. I saw nobody all the way except a total of 9 bears and 3 cubs. Pretty crazy. In retrospect, it was stupid to do this all by myself.


I went back last year, and I was pretty pissed to pass the Nisga'a highway by and not do it again. You are right, that it is a very good secret road. I love it up there. It is just more relax, and less stressful.

The Skeena river valley out of Prince Rupert in a late afternoon sun light has to be one of my most memorable ride so far.

[KaiBosh]

Yeah with the slide by Terrace the only way around it for some time was the junction shown in your last picture there. All manner of vehicles were bombing around this loop and part of it washed out for a day or two as well.

It will never happen but if they were to pave this run, it would make for a motorcycle paradise where you could loop around any which way you like on the way up to Hyder or parts North.

[kel1]

Yah, I came through on my way home from Alaska in my Jeep last year and kept shaking my head and saying, "Gotta come back on the bike. Gotta come back on the bike. Gotta come back on the bike..."
I found the Lava fields a little bit of a let down though...
-kelly