Alberni Bam Bam
- Bob Dalton
- Aug 6
- 11 min read
Yoel and I completed a slightly modified Alberni Bam Bam (as defined on bikepacking.com) loop over 7 days from July 7th to 13th 2026; many thanks again to Miles Arbor for setting this route. It was clear from speaking with various business owners and other bikepackers that this has become a very popular route and for good reason! The modification we made was to the first section from Nanaimo to the north end of Cowichan Lake. Instead of following the logging roads west of Nanaimo, we went south to Duncan then followed the Cowichan Valley Trail from Duncan to Lake Cowichan and continued on the south side of Cowichan Lake where we rejoined the Bam Bam. We took this approach due to reports of road closures.
We completed the loop in 7 days, more like 6.5, which was a nice pace. It could easily be done in 6 but there are lots of great spots, including coffee shops, swimming holes and camp sites, you really don't want to miss if you have the time.
Total riding distance: 512 km
Total climbing: 6,173 m
Total riding time: 35.1 hours → average riding speed: 14.6 km/h
Total elapsed time: 60.35 hours → average speed (elapsed): 8.5 km/h
Note: The above includes the 4 hour boat transfer time from Bamfield to Port Alberni including a lot of wait time. Exlcuding that outlier day the speeds were:
Total riding time: 31.1 hours → average riding speed: 14.7 km/h
Total elapsed time: 47.85 hours → average speed (elapsed): 9.5 km/h
Here is a summary of our days.
Nixon Creek is on the North End of Cowichan Lake
7 hours riding time (17.6 km/h) - there was a lot of pavement on this route.
9.5 hours elapsed time (13 km/h)
4.75 hours riding time (15 km/h)
7.5 hours elapsed time (9.5 km/h)
4.3 hours riding time (13.6 km/h) - not including a lot of hike-a-bike time!
8.3 hours elapsed time (7.1 km/h) - significantly slowed by hike-a-bike sections.
Note riding time should have included hike a bike but I was moving so slow my auto-pause stopped. Gotta change that setting.
5.5 hours riding time (12.8 km/h)
8.25 hours elapsed time (8.7 km/h)
4 hours riding time (14.0 km/h)
12.5 hours elapsed time - includes the 4 hour Lady Rose boat transfer from Bamfield to Port Alberni.
5.3 hours riding time (13.5 km/h)
9 hours elapsed time (8 km/h)
4.25 hours riding time (13.8 km/h)
5.3 hours elapsed time (11.1 km/h)
My Rig
I rode my Salsa Timberjack configured as follows:
Shimano Deore XT 12 speed with 30T front chainring with 10-51 cassette
2.4" Vittoria Mezcal tires front and back - love them.
Tailfin Rear Rack with Tailfin Rack Top Bag and two 10L Tailfin mini paniers
Tailfin 2.2L Top Tube Bag
Old Man Mountain Axle Pack rack mounts on the front forks holding two 10L Tailfin Mini Paniers
Tailfin Bar Cage with Apidura Expedition Handlebar Bag and 4L Backcountry Accessory Pocket.
Apidura Expedition 1.3L Cargo pack on the downtube (tools)
Apidura 7L Frame Pack
Two 1 litre water bottles mounted to the down tube using Zefal Gizmo Universal Mounts (these are great)
One 650 ml standard water bottle mounted on my flat bar again with the Zefal Gizmo.
Bar Ends added to my standard flat bar.
Gemini headlight (didn't get used)
Garmin 840
Day 1: Nanaimo to Nixon Creek Recreation Campground (123km, 1,171m climbing)
Nixon Creek is on the North End of Cowichan Lake
7 hours riding time (17.6 km/h) - there was a lot of pavement on this route.
9.5 hours elapsed time (13 km/h)
Today was a great day with mostly gentle riding. This was our longest day of the trip but not the hardest. We started early grabbing the 615am ferry from Horseshoe Bay - thanks Havi for the lift! As mentioned earlier, we skipped the first part of the Bam Bam route due to concerns about logging road closures and instead took a mostly road route to Duncan which was excellent - quiet roads, rolling hills, easy riding. We stopped at the Coco Cafe on Cedar Road only 10km after starting as we really wanted to set a gentle tone for the trip! It's a good spot.
The section from Duncan to Lake Cowichan I have ridden before and is a well documented route - the Cowichan Valley Trail follows an old rail line so the grades are awesome and the route is very well maintained. Nice easy, beautiful riding. See the Cowichan 8 for more details.
The real gravel starts on the South Shore Road (south shore of Cowichan Lake) after Honeymoon Bay. It's not a great road, gravel is pretty loose, which would be fine if there were not so many cars and trucks and an ugly amount of dust. We went all the way to Nixon Creek Recreation Campground which is about 20km beyond the Gordon River Road - the actual Bam Bam route - but we were really happy with the campsites and cleanliness of the Nixon Creek Sites. The hosts (Kevin and ?) were super friendly and are doing an amazing job maintaining the campground. It was well worth the extra 20km of riding - and 20km back on Day 2!
Nice roads to Duncan Cowichan Valley Trail South Shore Road Nixon Creek Nixon Creek Campground
Day 2: Nixon Creek to Lizard Lake (71km, 908m climbing)
4.75 hours riding time (15 km/h)
7.5 hours elapsed time (9.5 km/h)
Departed Nixon about 8 am after our usual 90 minutes for breakfast and packing-up. The ride back towards Honeymoon Bay was easy but still quite a few trucks, many of them not slowing down, kicking up lots of dust. First world problem. Stopped at the General Store for second breakfast before continuing on the Bam Bam route towards Port Renfrew. The gravel from Honeymoon Bay to where it connects with the Pacific Marine Road (which I had previously ridden from Cowichan Lake - may years ago on my road bike) is a combination of active logging road and older logging roads - all of it was very nice. At one point a small black bear ran onto the road ahead of us running as fast as I have ever seen a bear run before heading back into the trees - no sign of mom!
We met Rene Lapierre and Sophie Brisbois today! A wonderfully kind and friendly couple from Whitehorse, originally from the Mt. Tremblant area of Quebec and it turns out they know my cousins Micheline and Michel! Sophie was born in St. Agathe where Micheline has lived for many years.
Important side-bar: Sophie was riding a Rocky Mountain touring rig with 35mm road tires! She's so strong, this is not a ride anyone should attempt with that set-up. She flatted today and were on their last good tube so we loaned them one though it may or may not fit as it is for my 2.4" tires I carry as a spare in case my tubeless have an issue.
We stopped at the Harris Creek Recreational Trail to have a look at the giant Sitka Spruce that is still there. It is 3.2m in diameter, about 60m tall and at least 500 years old! It was an honor to spend an hour just sitting there.
Although it wasn't a long day we decided to stop at the walk-in sites at Lizard Lake as the sites were great and the other than Rene and Sophie we had the place to ourselves. Spent the late pm and evening swimming, checking out the "lizards" hanging at the dock and chatting - awesome end to a wonderfully relaxing day.
As a side note - we had a discussion with Rene and Sophie about cleaning dishes. We all agree it's important to pack out any food leftovers including small bits in your cookware, bowls, etc but there was some disagreement about washing-up. Yoel clearly falls in the camp of take a bit of water from the lake and wash your dishes somewhere in the woods away from the lake and your campsite. Rene's approach is to wash his dishes in the lake with the theory being it is all just organic matter that will get consumed or absorbed into the lake and avoids the problem of bears being attracted to smells. I can see both arguments and am not sure there is a "right" way to do this though my practice lately has been to simply have no washing to do other than a wipe with a very small, clean sheet of paper towel and put that in my garbage bag for proper disposal when there is an opportunity.
Coffee and Second Breakfast Giant Sitka Spruce at the Harris Creek Spruce Recreation Trail Great Gravel Made new friends! Lizard Lake Campsite Ahhhhhh
Day 3: Lizard Lake to Walbran Creek (59km, 800m climbing)
4.3 hours riding time (13.6 km/h) - not including a lot of hike-a-bike time!
8.3 hours elapsed time (7.1 km/h) - significantly slowed by hike-a-bike sections.
Note: Riding time should have included hike a bike time but I was moving so slow my auto-pause stopped.
It's a very nice 20km, mostly downhill, road ride on the Pacific Marine Road from Lizard Lake to Port Renfrew where again we had a second breakfast; this time at the Coastal Kitchen Cafe which was excellent. They have some nice stuff there too and as I was cold in the evenings so far I purchased myself a very nice hoodie which has since become a favourite.
Don't be deceived by the short distance and relatively small amount of climbing on this section. There are some very steep, but rideable, sections beyond Port Renfrew and there are two very nasty hike-a-bike sections that required removing all our gear and helping each other lug our bikes over difficult terrain. We later learned from a security guard, as we exited the area we probably should not have been in, that there have been demonstrators in the area who have been damaging equipment so the logging operator (Mosaic) has been putting in road blocks. He told us we should not have been riding through there due to blasting in progress (we indeed heard the blasting). We hadn't seen any signs indicating thus though clearly we jumped some hoops to get into this area. In any case, he was very pleasant and let us continue our journey.
The section of road down to the Walbran Creek camping spot is a rough old, not maintained, logging road but we were fine on our mountain bike rigs and it is worth the trip to this historic site to see the Emerald Giant and swim in the beautiful Emerald Pool which may be my top highlight of this trip.
We camped at the spots along the creek - accessible by a small trail on the far end (on the right) of the bridge. There are several spots there - they are tucked in the forest which makes them beautiful but they are cold and damp.
Port Renfrew
Day 4: Walbran Creek to Flora Lake (72km, 960m climbing)
5.5 hours riding time (12.8 km/h)
8.25 hours elapsed time (8.7 km/h)
We woke to a wet morning; although not raining there was a lot of fog in the air as we climbed back out of the Walbran valley. It's a very steady 3-5% climb of about 12km with rough double track but very enjoyable on the mountain bike. Once back on the main route the gravel is very nice all the way to Nitinat including a really fun downhill along the Carmanah.
We ran into our former colleague Alex Tegzes while we were having lunch at Nitinat! Alex was a co-op student working with Yoel and I more than 20 years ago and now is an avid kite surfer and a father too! So nice to see Alex.
Nitinat to Flora lake was an easy ride on nice gravel - we considered continuing as it had not been a hard day but the camp spot Rene and Sophie offered to share with us was very nice so we decided to stay and have a another social evening with them.
Heading out into the fog
Day 5: Flora Lake to Port Alberni (56km, 694m climbing)
4 hours riding time (14.0 km/h)
12.5 hours elapsed time - includes the 4 hour Lady Rose boat transfer from Bamfield to Port Alberni.
We got a early start from Flora Lake as we were not 100% sure how long it would take us to get to Bamfield and we didn't want to miss our reservation on the Lady Rose. As it turned out we had plenty of time as 40ish km to Bamfield was easy riding. We paused briefly en-route to check-out the wilderness site at Pachena Lake. It looks pretty good - good enough to pitch a tent or two but no facilities. (see photo). At Bamfield we arrived at the east dock and took a water taxi (Yoel had some connection with the young person operating the water taxi! Yoel, remind me and I'll drop that in here. )across to the east side where we ate well and relaxed at Flora's Cafe, made a short ride to Brady's Beach, and chatted with t he dozen or so other riders waiting for the Lady Rose.
The trip on the Lady Rose was beautiful, complete with an Orca siting (see video) and lots of enjoyable discussion with other bikepackers.
Unfortunately the true WET coast finally caught up with us as approached Port Alberni. We grabbed some food at a Country Grocer in PA, had a very wet and muddy climb out of Port Alberni and decided to wilderness camp at the first available opportunity - Roger's Creek on the Grad Trail which is a nice spot.
Gorgeous start to the day.
Day 6: Port Alberni to Englishman River PP (72km, 900m climbing)
5.3 hours riding time (13.5 km/h)
9 hours elapsed time (8 km/h)
It was a very wet night! I was dry in my new Durston X-Dome 1+ but Yoel's fly didn't handle the rain very well. In any case the rain had stopped by morning and before too long the sun came out so we made an early stop at Coombs Country Candy (not in the town of Coombs) to dry out a bit. From there it is a tough climb with some challenging downhill singletrack before hitting the smooth gravel leading to Horne Lake where we took a long break and dried out some more!
The ride after Horne Lake is all vey nice, easy gravel, the long powerline trail section is solid and includes a sweet section of trail through Little Qualicum Falls Park before you hit the pavement which continues all the way to Englishman River Provincial Park where we spent the night. We did make a detour into Coombs but it was chaos and I could not get out of there fast enough - way too much humanity and commercialism for me!
Drying Out
Day 7: Englishman River to Nanaimo (59km, 740m climbing)
4.25 hours riding time (13.8 km/h)
5.3 hours elapsed time (11.1 km/h)
Yoel summarized the first section of trail and road nicely with "Miles has a sense of humour." There is some significant hike a bike (see photo) and immediately after, as you head west along the north side of Englishman River we ran into active logging right on the roadside. Looking at bikepacking.com now (August 2026) I see Miles has wisely created a detour which is prudent at the moment but also a drag as the road (155 Main) coming back west along the south side of the river is smooth, wide, gravel cruising.
From 155 Main you join 142 Main which is also great riding and then you are treated to the awesome flowing single track called Fine China in the Dumont Trails area - huge thankyou to the work of the Nanaimo Mountain Bike Club with cooperation from Mosaic and the Nanaimo Regional District.
This brought us to the end of our trip but not before I managed to tip over while standing still and landing right on my seat post! Ouch. No serious damage was done and all's well that ends well.
Many thanks Yoel for a great trip!
Quite a climb out of Englishman River PP!
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