Chasing Fall in the Fraser Valley
All time fall time. We don’t say that without reason in the Pacific Northwest. Cool weather and moisture brings the forests back to how we know them - mist hangs in the branches and the greens pop, vibrant and healthy. We coat ourselves in a fine spray of mud, knowing it's the only real way to experience this place. After a summer of neglect because a shovel full of dust won't stay where you put it, builders are back out in force to heal the trails.
The Fraser Valley has a special appeal this time of year. While the Sea To Sky corridor is known for its deep and dark evergreen forests, the Fraser Valley opens up into more deciduous forests. Every fall these trees drop their leaves to the ground, reloading trails with a coating of organics that would otherwise be scraped bare in a single season. This gives the trails a special character - they always somehow feel a bit fresh, a bit untraveled. Manna from heaven.
However, the shorter days come at a cost - it feels like it starts getting dark just as it gets light, and finding weather windows becomes a game of cat and mouse if you don’t like to be soaked to your core. But if you change your mindset from those epic summer days on the trails and sink a bit more into the experience of a place, fall riding can be something more reflective and social. Picture this:
You load your bikes and some excellent people into the car and hit the road for a weekend out of the city. You head east from Vancouver until the mountains close in on both sides and where they touch, the Fraser Valley starts: Hope. The mountains here loom over the valley bottom, steep and littered with seasonal waterfalls that have re-emerged with the autumn rains. A short stroll to stretch your legs in any of a dozen places around town takes you through a sea of deep green and vibrant yellows as the sword ferns give way to fall colours - waterfall-hopping is an awesome way for anyone without a bike to spend an afternoon.
The town itself is hugged on all sides by precipitous mountains, and filled by wood carvings and call-backs to one of their treasured claims-to-fame: it was where Rambo: First Blood was filmed. All through town are shop windows adorned with memorabilia and cut-outs of Sylvester Stallone sweatily brandishing an arsenal of intimidating weapons. It also inspired the name of Hope’s newest claim to fame - a brand new trail that punches a monstrous 1000m descent down the imposing and rugged mountains beside town. You stop in to fuel yourself up at Blue Moose Coffee House, and over the entrance you stare directly at the mountain that First Blood drops down. It’s steep. As one of the town’s first “official” trails, it sets quite the standard and is worth making the trip to ride it alone. If you don’t have a shuttle or the legs for the full climb or are playing tag with the snowline (we used that second one as our excuse), there are a few access points to cut into the trail below the top, but at the moment they are still under construction so they require an adventurous spirit. The trail itself is the brainchild of Mike Prawdzik, who was tired of having to take his son to other towns to ride, and thought “why not here?”. After years of planning and one of the most difficult builds to date by Thomas Schoen and his crew at First Journey Trails, First Blood opened in 2025 to amazing reception. It carves its way through huge boulders and ancient forests blanketed in moss, and strikes that perfect lucrative balance of a rugged trail that keeps you on your toes, but flows effortlessly down the steep mountainside.
You get back to the car and shake out your arms on the short drive back to Hope. Mountainview Brewery is the perfect place to stop in post-ride for dinner and to sample the First Blood trail crew’s beer of choice: the at-this-point-unsurprisingly-named First Blood Orange wheat ale. With bellies full and legs warmed up for a big day to follow, it’s a short walk over to Richca Chalet Resort, which offers beautiful rooms in a variety of unique aesthetics, and loves to cater to tired mountain bikers. Luckily, the short days mean lots of rest, so you can prepare yourself to pack every daylight hour the next day.
Starting out early, you make it to your next destination as it gets light: Chilliwack. It’s built quite the name for itself in recent years as a new outdoors mecca. The Chilliwack River Valley offers everything from adventurous alpine climbing and white water paddling, to things that offer a calmer start to the day - the fishing in the valley is world-class, and an excellent way to shake the legs out in the morning. Putting your feet in the stream offers a reason to stand still in nature with friends and chat. Your cast has never been very good and the fish can tell, but success in this place is more about the connection with each other than providing dinner. Which is good because the only thing you catch is bushes, but the laughs feed you enough to pull on your kit and head to Vedder Mountain for some less peaceful pursuits.
“Vedder sucks, don’t go.” The stickers used to circulate pretty freely in this part of the world - a tongue-in-cheek way some locals tried to keep the masses away, and for good reason. Pedalling up, huge maples canopy overhead and the ground feels slightly spongy, as if the well-established climb trail doesn't see much traffic. That’s just the nature of the dirt - the trees dump so much organic matter on the mountain that things get re-loamed every year and always give you that fresh-trail feel like you’re one of the lucky few that gets in early on a new line. Happily, the ridership in town is actually extremely welcoming - local advocacy groups are actively encouraging people to come experience their trail network. The Fraser Valley Mountain Bike Association has been putting in an immense amount of work with City of Chilliwack and Tourism Chilliwack to bring a larger user-base to the trail network - they’re building Vedder’s first adaptive bike trail, they’re e-bike friendly, and want to bring more people onto the trails to bike, hike, and walk. More users means more advocacy, which means more opportunity for funding and maintenance.
Every lap on Vedder must include 2Cents. You drop off the road and are instantly into low-angle turns and pumps through fall leaves that encourage you to be irresponsibly light on the brakes. As you move down through the mountain, the terrain keeps a pretty moderate angle overall - it’s part of what keeps the erosion here down, and keeps the trails feeling so fresh. Mid-mountain, the trails deliver in droves: Ditch Chicken, Electric Lettuce, and Mexican Ninja run fast and flowy, and even the blanket of fall colours can’t hide the sea of ferns and moss on both sides.
No lap on Vedder is complete without a stop in at Sidekick Brewing. A dedicated partner of the FVMBA, Sidekick is no stranger to slinging cold brews (and great non-alcoholic options) and delicious food to mud-speckled riders coming off the mountain. As you polish off one of their substantial pizzas, you check your watch - just enough time for one last lap on the way back to the city.
Pulling off the highway in Abbotsford, you wind your way through beautiful rolling forests and farms as you climb up to Sumas Mountain. It’s already been a long day, so you opt for a relaxed lap to polish off the weekend. The city has a lot to offer - it has the largest trail network and the largest user-base in the Fraser Valley, so with limited daylight remaining you decide to head straight for one of Abbotsford’s most beloved offerings: Squid Line. For 15 years, it’s been a year-round staple on Sumas Mountain. It drains well, so offers a different experience in each season. This time of year, the trail is blanketed in a coating of leaves. Luckily, its smooth rollers and berms don’t hold many surprises beneath the leaves, so you feel confident pushing into everything and enjoying the spray of leaves lifted by your tires. The trail undulates for 5 km, and mixes gentle climbs in with the flowy descents to make a trail that feels like it lasts much longer than its length suggests.
You pull back into the parking lot and load the bikes up as the light fades. It’s a quick jaunt to the last stop before heading back into the city. Winding through long dark stretches of farmland, you finally pull off the forested road to a warm welcoming glow spilling over a tall cedar fence. Through a privacy gate waits Just Breathe Spa - a private oasis open on one side to a forested ravine. You put your phones away, prime yourself under the warm outdoor shower, and spend the next hour bouncing between the barrel sauna and cold-plunge tubs, treating your tired body to a gentle denouement and complementing the sounds of the happily burbling stream with the laughter of friends.
The communities of the Fraser Valley are located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Stó:lō Nation. The Stó꞉lō people, have lived on and cared for this land since time immemorial on which we are greatful for the opporunity to live, work, and recreate.