Trans Cascadia – a Backcountry Singletrack Epic
Trans Cascadia is a premium guided mountain biking experience in the format of a four-day blind gravity enduro race on some of the best singletrack in the Pacific Northwest of the USA. Established in 2015, Trans Cascadia has quickly shot to the top of many riders shortlists of must-do events. For most folk, the race itself is not the focus of the event, and simply riding the incredible trails on offer – many of which are built specifically for the event, and joining in the party are the main draw.

The Santa Cruz Hightower was the perfect bike for Trans Cascadia
Collaborating with various trail associations and user-groups, Trans Cascadia is all about sustainable trail building and maintenance, and the event is in part a vehicle towards this goal of establishing an amazing trail network in the Cascadia area. To find out more about what they do, have a read of their web page here.
This year back in September Phil, Branden and Kim took the trip down to Washington to take in the Trans Cascadia all aboard their matching Santa Cruz Hightowers. Though somewhat unintentional it turned out to be the perfect bike for the trip. Keep reading to see through their eyes what they thought of this trip of a lifetime!

The snow and frost was to be a common theme over the week, but that didn’t put a damper on things.
Branden

The organisers had the campsite dialled, with fires, gourmet meals and everything prepped for the riders.

Amazing views like this were not uncommon.
All in all the whole experience was fantastic and I would recommend the Trans Cascadia to anyone who is thinking of doing a multi-day enduro style event.
Click the photo below to scroll through the gallery
Phil

Beautiful campsites with tents already set up for you, what could be better?
1) Arriving into camp with tents set up everywhere; a raging fire going on; getting our incredible grab bag of goodies; grabbing a beer and walking down to the lake with Branden and taking in one hell of a view of Mount Adams for the first time.

Snapped chain? That’s just racing, what more can you say?

We don’t often have to hike-a-bike on the North Shore, the hike at Cascadia was humbling for sure.

The struggle was real on the final day, but a bit of dutch courage certainly helped.
Click the photo below to scroll through the gallery
It sounds like the guys had an epic time down at Trans Cascadia, and if I’m honest the rest of us were pretty jealous. It sounds like the trip of a lifetime. If you’d like to find out more or enter, check out their website here. If you can collar Phil, Branden or Kim in store, they would have some stories to tell too!