Day 8: July 6 Sicamous to Canyon Hot Springs  70 miles (113 km)
Picture (upper right): Neri in Craigellaiche, BC where the last spike was laid in the trans Canadian railroad
Picture (lower left): Jon, Brook, Karin, and John at the Giant Cedars park

The route was on the Trans Canada Highway all day.  We hit the road early and enjoyed the short time before it filled up with cars and trucks.  Craigellaiche was the first stop of the day.  It's claim to fame is this is the spot where the last spike was driven in the trans Canadian railroad.  It's fun being a tourist sometimes.  We take pictures, buy silly post cards and generally enjoy ourselves.  Except for arriving in time for dinner, we don't have anything else that we have to do in a day.  (That was to make all of you who have to work every day a little jealous.  Did it work?)

Jon and I rode together today.  We played leapfrog with Neri all day, passing each other at least 7 times.  Jon and I ride fast and often arrive at camp before the others.  Neri is almost 70 and gave us quite a run for the day.

Revelstoke Mountain dominated the skyline all day.  The scenery was spectacular.  The sun was out  You could see snow-capped peaks.  And we passed at least 20 waterfalls next to the road.  We had to stop quite a few times just to enjoy the view.

In the city of Revelstoke, population 9,000 (big for this part of the country), I bought aerobars for my bike.  You add them to the handlebars.  They let you rest your forearms on the handlebars and get a lower profile going into the wind.  (You've seen them on bikes if you've ever watched the Ironman competition on TV.)  I'm getting worried about the long stretches coming up in the prairies.

We arrived at the campground early.  Brook joined a few of us and we rode back up the road a few miles to the Giant Cedars park which was right off the highway.  Inside the park we hiked the short boardwalk through some old growth forest.  Amazing.  The cedars were huge and it was like walking in another world.  You were surrounded by nature and you couldn't see the sky.  

The campground has a natural hot spring on the property.  Most of the group went over and soaked as soon as they arrived.  Us poor folks on cooking duty had to wait until after the dinner dishes were done.  The wait made it even better.

This is bear country.  We're not allowed to keep food or anything that smells in our tents, that includes things like toothpaste, perfume, and our bike packs (since they smell like PB&Js by now).  I haven't seen any bears yet, and I really don't want it to happen in the middle of the night.

Day 9: July 7 Canyon Hot Springs to Golden  73 miles (118 km)
Picture: The marker at the top of Rogers Pass, BC

It was another tough day.  The climb from the campground up through Rogers Pass was long, 20 miles (33 km).  The grade was easy but with the poor weather and a pulled muscle I was having a difficult time.  The injury happened on the climb to the Larch Hill Winery on July 4th. I didn't notice it until yesterday.  It's not bad, but I'm nursing the right leg a little bit. 

Riders from previous years have commented the tour is more mental than physical.  They're right.  Jules, Herb and Catherine all said it was their best day so far.  It ranked pretty low for me.

The summit was cold and overcast.  Jeff and I were riding together and decided to stop in for a while to eat and warm up.  We wandered through the exhibit, watched the video on avalanche control, and had a long, expensive lunch.  We didn't get out of there until an hour and a half later.  The downhill was good, except for the snowsheds (think dark tunnels with the possible road debris while traveling at 45 mph (70 kph)).  Jeff was fearless, even passing me going through one of them.

We met up with a few other riders on the nasty hill going up into camp.  None of us had anything good to say about the hill.  The worse part was that we'll have to finish the hill tomorrow morning. The trade-off was the view.  We looked out over the town of Golden and the Selkirk Mountains.  Right after dinner four para-sailers floated by with the sunset behind them.

Day 10: July 8 Golden to Field (Yoho National Park)  40 miles (64 km)
Picture (left): Ron in his standard pose with a camera
Picture (right): Jon and Brook at the base of Takakkaw Falls


The ride to Field was fabulous.  We passed so many breathtaking views that we had to stop taking pictures.  Field is a small tourist town in the middle of the Yoho National Park. It sits next to a river and a lake at the bottom of the Kicking Horse Pass.  The whole place seemed to have fewer than 50 buildings and most of them were inns and restaurants.

I wore my "racing suit" only because all my other clothes were dirty.  Poor planning.  I'd been trying to save it for the big days.   The good thing about it is the big pockets in the back of the shirt.  Since it was such a short day I left my Camelbak in the truck, took 2 water bottles, and stuffed my pockets with everything I could possibly need (tools, tube, camera, wallet, and lunch).

It was a short ride, and relatively easy.  John, Karin and I rode together most of the day.  We met Robert and Jeff eating their sandwiches at the side of the road, near a stream.  It seemed like such a good idea that we joined them.  At one point there were nine of us sitting on the concrete barriers munching away.  We must have been quite a sight for passing motorists.

The route map for the day was wrong.  Instead of being 11 km east of Field, the campground was only about 3 km east.  Brook made an announcement at dinner last night, but Robert never heard.  Instead, he climbed the 5 miles (8 km) Kicking Horse Pass and then started looking for signs.  He went into the hotel at the summit and asked if they knew where it was.  They told him it was at the bottom of the hill.  "No", he said and pulled out his map.  "Yes it is", said the person behind the counter, "and I saw a map just like that yesterday" (from one of the riders in the group a day ahead of us).  He was mad and planned to let everyone know how upset he was when he got to camp.  After the ride back down the hill, all his anger had faded away.  That's what downhills do to a biker.

I arrived at the truck first and helped Brook unload the carts.  The weather was great and Brook had a look on her face that said "let's ride up to the waterfall".  Off we went.  Takakkaw Falls is the largest cascading falls in Canada (what other kind is there?).  Jon caught up with us along the way, just before the snow banks.  Yes, there were 10 foot snow banks on either side of the road... in July!  We had to stop and make (throw) snowballs.

Around dinnertime it started to rain.  Alan said it was just a passing shower and would be gone in 15 minutes.  He's 0 for 1.  It cleared around bedtime.

Day 11: July 9 Field to Banff  56 miles (90 km)
Picture (lower right): The Chateau at Lake Louise, outside of Banff
Picture (upper left): Jules, Jon, and Alan at the Great Divide, the border between BC and Alberta

The biking shorts that I washed the night before weren't dry (remember the rain?).  I searched for the cleanest dirty ones I had.

The clouds were pretty low this morning.  The campsite was surrounded by large mountains but we could barely see them.  Around 7:00 a.m. Daphne spotted a little patch of blue in the sky.  I took that as an omen and traded in my biking pants for leg warmers and ditched the jacket.  What a smart move; the day turned out to be sunny and warm.

Jon and I rode out together and did the climb up Kicking Horse Pass.  We couldn't believe that Robert was going to have to do it again.  Once was enough for us.  I wonder if he considered staying at the hotel at the summit.  At the top of the Pass we turned off of the Trans Canada Highway onto old route 1A, a closed road.  What a peaceful trip early in the morning -- no trucks.  We met up with Jules and Alan and rode with them the rest of the day.

Our path took us to the continental divide, which is also the dividing line between Alberta and British Columbia.  Hooray, we've made it through the first province!  You could see a stream split at a Y right there.  One branch flowed to the Pacific, the other to the Atlantic.  As Alan noted, "You could pee in one place and pollute two oceans."

The next stop was Lake Louise, outside of Banff.  This tourist mecca has a huge hotel that was built near the turn of the last century by the Canadian Pacific Railroad.  It sits next to a turquoise lake and is surrounded by mountains and the Victoria Glacier.  The lake sits at 5,400 feet (1,730 meters).  It can snow any time of year there and the lake is just a couple of degrees above freezing.  If it weren't for the crowds of tourists, I could have stayed there for hours.  Instead, we had coffee and pastries (banana bread dipped in chocolate for me, wow) then moved on.

We headed out on the Bow River Parkway to nearby Banff (yes, Joyce I really went to your favorite city).  Our small group of riders had an excess of testosterone and frequently found itself sprinting for no apparent reason.  We had the paceline moving at 31 mph (50 kph) for a while.  For comparison, my average for the trip is more like 17 mph (27 kph).  We didn't just ride all day.  The Parkway had scenic stops every few miles.  We stopped at the Storm Mountain lookout, Johnson Canyon, the Internment Camp marker, and Cathedral Mountain lookout.  I know I keep saying it, but the views were amazing.  Alan called the scenes "a thousand colors and textures".

We arrived in Banff in the early afternoon and wandered through the city to find the campground.  It was a "big city", again built for tourists.  We found the camera store and then the liquor store.  We had happy campers at dinner.

Dinner was huge.  All of us have noticed our appetites are enormous.  Salad was a mixture of potatoes, tomatoes, green beans and tuna fish.  In normal days that would have been enough for a meal.  Spaghetti with meat sauce was the main course.  Daphne was dishing it out generously-- thank goodness I didn't have a bigger plate.  This was Daphne's last night with us.  She'd ridden the tour back in '92.  The weather was horrible that year and she didn't see much of the country so this was her chance to see it.  We'll miss her.  Who's going to buy the Bearenstein Bear tablecloths for our picnic tables?  She added class to our group.

After dinner I pulled out the bottle of scotch.  There were only 4 or 5 people sitting around the truck when I brought it out.  Word spread quickly and we had more than 10 happy faces a few minutes later.

onward >>  The Prairies: flat and fast

backward >>  British Columbia: Getting our legs in shape

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