DESTINATION: B.C. COAST MOUNTAIN RANGE

By Ian Middleton // Photos by Jim Martinello

Having grown up in an adventurous family, surrounded by nature, I’ve always thrived while exploring new terrain. What started with studying paper topos of Vancouver Island and years overseas in Asia expanded as both experience and technology allowed.

Through my early years in school and organized sports, I quickly learned my strength came through resilience. At our core, most endurance athletes have the innate ability to suffer. I found that if I dug deep, leaving nothing behind when flowing into the unknown, whether it be pushing to the top of the next hill or ticking off that next 10 kilometers, there was more in the tank than many of us first believed.

This same mentality has allowed me to push through many life barriers, whether it’s my career, relationship or personal growth. It’s also driven me to continue searching for the next adventure. I am very privileged to have been gifted opportunities in sports, exploration and international travel.

Through a myriad of different disciplines, both competitive and personal pursuits, I found flow on two wheels. I was blessed to have been surrounded by some extremely talented riders on Vancouver Island as I found my niche in 24-inch hardtail riding. I transitioned from skateparks and street riding to dirt jumps, competitive riding, and trails. Many years of multi-sport adventure racing and bike-packing trips then led to seeking bigger mountain days on a bike.

With a background of trail running and peak bagging across Vancouver Island, I became consumed with gaining further experience in the mountains. Through trips overseas to destinations in the Himalayas, across the Annamite Mountains, to exploring volcanoes in Indonesia, the Japanese Alps, and the Pacific Islands, I was eager to educate myself while moving through more technical terrain.

What began as a pursuit to feel more confident in vertical terrain, with plans to return to higher-altitude objectives, landed me a career in guiding rock climbs and mountain bike trails when I returned to Canada.

Landing in Squamish, my comfort on granite terrain quickly grew. Hence, following a decade out of the saddle, once I reconnected with the new school of riding the Sea to Sky had to offer, I fell in love with techy descent lines.

While I continued to hunt for new terrain to climb on, I was also looking for the next slab riding challenge. Through off-season trips to climb in areas like Utah and Colorado, I began packing the mountain bike along, keen to understanding the local flavor and the difference in traction from sandstone to limestone and granite.

Of course, similar to climbing-shoe rubber, tire rubber has vastly improved since my early riding days. I found the crossover between friction rock climbing and steep, technical granite riding to be a perfect marriage. Sticky-rubber bike shoes were made of the same compounds we were using while climbing, and reading a line was simply reversed while dropping in from the top.

As I began finding new, closer-to-home granite climbing to seek out, and satellite imagery and mapping with programs like FatMap improved in these regions (our dense rainforested Coast Mountain Range), it became apparent that I needed to put feet on the ground on some of the larger backcountry topography.

Like many riders, climbers and multifaceted athletes, battling injury was something I had always dealt with. With a pending surgery on the horizon, I decided to move further up British Columbia’s coast to escape the FOMO I knew I would face in Squamish. This move really opened my eyes to what was possible in our local mountains.

While I was excited to explore the 1000-meter-plus vertical walls in the local backcountry, I was also struggling to recover from foot surgery that pulled me away from climbing and guiding for a few seasons. So, I began digging into topo maps, Google Earth and satellite imagery of this local backcountry area, knowing there must be available descent lines on the backside of Canada’s tallest climbing walls.

I quickly assembled an all-star team of riders to explore deeper into the local backcountry, with ridgelines 2000 meters above the valley floors. As we came in to land, the crew’s minds were blown by the endless rideable terrain as far as our eyes could see.

Season after season we’ve continued to unlock endless features and improbable connections between benched terrain, cliffs, and ridgelines. Each new rider to the area comes away with eternal stoke to return, combined with an eagerness to discover what’s hiding around the next corner.

From the outset, this passion project was intended to bring more awareness to the old-growth logging deep in the backcountry of the Sunshine Coast, British Columbia, with hopes to bring further connection to this amazing backcountry from visiting tourists and locals alike. With views the initial helicopter flight offers up, and vistas witnessed while atop the two peaks above base camp, guests will become better aware of the devastating deforestation that continues generation after generation.

Ideally, by offering guided trips to this granite paradise, we may see a shift away from resource extraction, and a new interest in both exploring and protecting these coveted peaks, valleys, and backcountry kingdoms.

Flow State Guiding is the result of years of dedicated work to bring the dream of mountain riding—on what we hope becomes synonymous with the world’s largest rock-slab riding zones—to reality. Following six years of government applications, we are operational with over 2000 acres of terrain to explore, in the heart of British Columbia’s Coast Mountain Range.

We offer three- to five-day alpine riding trips, complete with a luxury base camp that includes a hot shower, a full kitchen, a sauna, and comfortable beds to fall asleep in while stargazing in our unique, heated domes. Our terrain is not your typical mountain bike destination. It’s a thrilling mosaic of granite-slab riding, glacial tarns, all in the heart of our jaw-dropping Coast Mountains. Learn more at www.flowstateguidingcom.