Old Ghost Road Bike Epic

The Old Ghost Road (OGR) is an 85 km track which winds through the South Island's Glasgow Range situated on the westcoast, starting or finishing at the historic ghost town of Lyell in the South, and Seddonville in the North. This relatively new trail has gotten a ton of national and international hype, and is either on the bucketlist, should be on the bucketlist, or has been returned to the bucketlist after a successful completion, for all mountain bikers, trail runners, or trampers.

Trail Background:

-------------Every hut contained the same book about the construction of the trail, which turned out to be interesting and well written. May as well share the highlights. -----------------------

So the story goes, an old map resurfaced in the mid-2000's showing a proposed road linking Lyell to Karamea (Northernmost town on the West Coast) with the purpose of servicing a booming gold mining industry during the 1880's. While construction of the north end had been completed, and was now being used as a tramping track, historical records suggested that only a small portion of the road from the south have been built, and was left to overgrow after the mining industry collapsed towards the end of the 19th century. The map made it into the hands of an ambitious American ex-pat named Marion Boatwright, who seemed to have way to much free time (probably money too) on his hands. He took it upon himself to first, find the historic and overgrown road, find out how far it went into the bush, then gather volunteers, and subjugate them to the task of uncovering and completing the road.

As told in Boatwright's book "Spirit to the Stone", they discovered that the original road climbed 17 km up through native beach forest to the Lyell Saddle, some 30 km from the existing Northern track at ending at Mokihinui River Forks. Long story short, they were awarded a massive grant, did a whole bunch of fundraising, scrapped the rest of road as surveyed done in the 1880's, as it would be prohibitively expensive follow the route, and spent 6 years building the trail and a series of huts along the trail. The track, in its entirety, was opened to the public in 2016. Interestingly, the grant they applied for and received (New Zealand Cycle Trail Grant) was for the construction of a purpose-built mountain bike track. Boatwright's initial plan was for a multipurpose trail, the acceptance of the grant kind of changed the plans to be geared towards mountain biking, although it could still be used by trampers, hunters, and trail runners.

Ok, so our hot take on the old ghost road is it is the coolest bike trail on the planet! From further research (beyond the book) showed that the trail cost north of $6 million to complete, and is considered one of the New Zealand Cycle Trail Great Rides. While this alone would suggest that the trail is so well built that anyone and their grandparents could ride it, nothing could be further from the truth. This trail is intimidating and not for all bikers. Hell, there was a 4 km stretch that wasn’t even for Lisa and I, were still great to walk non-the-less.

Our trail experience:

Lisa and I were both excited and a bit nervous about biking the OGR, both from first hand accounts and from online trail descriptions and ratings. We trained for it…. Or atleast we used it as an excuse to put more km on our bikes, and we also decided to utilize the hut system, and stretch the trip over four days. We stayed in Seddonville (Northend of the Trail) the night before, left our vehicles at the trailend the morning of the ride, and jumped on a 2-hour shuttle to the trailhead in the ghost-town of Lyell.

Our first day of riding was fairly easy, a steady climb of 900 m over 17 km through forest. We arrived at the Lyell hut shortly after 1 PM, which gave us almost too much time to chat with other cyclists and trampers, cook, watch a family of feral goats play, and read “Spirit to the Stone” (Background section).

The second day started much like the first, with a low grade climb over 6 km up to and above the bushline. From their things got a whole bunch more interesting. The views from the tops, were splendid, and featured much of the Glasgow and Saint Arnaud Range, basically half the width of the South Island. The trail followed a soft ridgeline to cliffs encompassing a peak called Rocky Tor. The trail then side-skirted the very steep and rocky west face of the mountain for several kilometers and was easily the most frightening part of the second day. Parts of this section were no more than 60 cm wide, so any mistake would be pretty rough, and probably fatal. Lisa and I walked our bikes through lots of this section. The trail did eventually meet back up with the softer ridgeline, which then dropped back into the bush for a bit, until reaching a lake and an overlook, on which the Ghost Lake Hut sat; our home for the evening.

Again, we had arrived in the early afternoon, so after a short nap, Lisa and I scrambled up to the top of a peak just behind the hut. We were treated with great views of the surrounding mountain ranges, and a sweet vantage point of the trail behind us and ahead of us. It seems that much of the New Zealand’s mountain ranges are nearly continuous, where smooth walk-able ridges tie the mountains together like webbed feet. To a hiker, this is enticing, as you can “bag” several peaks without loosing and regaining much elevation. Lisa and I decided to do just that, so we wandered a ridgeline for several kilometers. Looking back in the general direction of the hut, we decided that dropping into the valley and climbing back up a separate peak could be an interesting shortcut back. Sadly, it was not. We totally underestimated the longness of the really long grass, the uneven rocks from which it grew, and the steepness of the terrain. But we did eventually make it back to the hut, tired, thirsty, sneezing, and covered in prickly native grass seeds.

Knowing we had a difficult and full day ahead of us, we woke up reasonably early and headed back onto the trail. The first 5 km of trail heading north out of the hut in infamously difficult. It was no joke, tight and steep switchbacks down a crumbing rock face, then up an equally steep but technical climb onto a knife edge ridge, followed by flowy turns through a bolder field atop the ridge. For us, this involved a great deal of walking our bikes, although the sections which could be ridden were maybe the best build of any trail Lisa or I had ever ridden. The ridgeline abruptly becomes steeper, and the smooth flowy trail was replaced by a staircase, consisting of over 300 steps (according to the book, F counting) which climbs down the tops back into native brush. The following 30 km, apart from a short climb up through a boulder field, was cruisy , winding down some 1000 meters through dense forest to the Mokihinui Hut, where we were set to stay. We were happy to find that 20 of those km did not require pedaling!

Upon inspection of the hut, and based on our energy levels, Lisa and I decided to skip the stay, and the subsequent sand-fly bites, and head for the trail exit. After eating some food, taking a quick nap, and going for a swim in the Mokihinui, we jumped back on the bikes and headed for our van. We had expected the last 20 km to be an easy straightforward section, as it had once been used as a pack trail, servicing a now long gone forming community in the Mokihinui Valley, but were mistaken. The remainder of trail was somewhat of a rollercoster; constantly climbing into and out of the steep-walled gorge formed by the Mokihinui River, onroute to the Tasman Sea. While this section was beautiful, it was also difficult, and narrow in places. It also featured several skinny suspension bridges linking ridable breaks between cliffs through the gorge.

We made it off the trail around 7:30 PM , tired but stoked about the day. We headed into Westport, grabbed some cheap and greasy takeaway and beer, and found a hotel room for the night. Thinking back, it was an interesting decision to keep going and finish in three days, instead of extending our trip over four days. But it was easily one of the best bike days either of us had had, and I think when that happens, you should probably drink beer and have the luxury of a shower.

KeeganRead more