Hey folks – I’m still rolling! Cell service was pretty sparse as I traveled through Jasper, Banff, and Kootenay National Parks.
- I took a rest day at the Icefields campground and did a short hike up into a meadow and then to a viewpoint on the ridge overlooking the visitor center and the glaciers – it was amazing! Lots of varied terrain, spectacular views, and I even saw a Bighorn Sheep!
- At the camp I met a bikepacker from Virginia who was just about to start the Great Divide mountain bike route, and a group of backpackers from Quebec, including one who had been exploring the parks without a car by hiking and hitchhiking for 10 weeks!
- That evening it started raining and the temperature plummeted into the 30s! Luckily, I was prepared for this. I had just been questioning my decision to haul woolen long underwear for 1000 miles, but turns out I needed it!
- The next day remained very chilly and wet – in fact it was snowing a bit when I was taking down my tent, and supposedly the high was 39. Luckily, my route was mostly downhill and would be a pretty easy day unless I did something incredibly stupid
- I did something incredibly stupid. I pulled over to check out this cool spot where the river just poured into this narrow chasm and disappeared, and I noticed there was an old road. I checked my routing app, and it was the old icefield parkway, and the app seemed to think it was good for biking. I decided to do it – it was all downhill, and it would be nice to be out of the traffic. It started off great – a nice wide gravel road. The first downed tree I encountered should have been a sign that this was very unmaintained, but I was feeling adventurous and just kept going. It was fun for a while, but the path quickly degraded into single track, and then essentially just a hiking path. The downed trees and overgrown brush kept increasing, and eventually got so bad I had to resort to taking all the gear off my bike and making multiple trips back and forth to shuttle everything. One time I even lost the trail for a bit coming back for my bike. I went from having fun, to laughing about the situation, to cursing my stupidity, to eventually exhaustion bordering on misery – it was still very cold and I was soaking wet from sweat from dragging my gear though the mess – luckily I was wearing wool so I stayed warm, but it was still not pleasant. And the kicker at the end was that the old road didn’t even meet back up with the highway! I had to haul everything up a steep 40 foot embankment to get back on the road! In retrospect, it was a really dumb move – I’m really lucky I didn’t damage my bike or gear, or get injured – and I won’t talk about how much bear scat I saw. Anyway, lesson learned – I’ll think twice before attempting something like that again. In the end, what would have been a 10 minute coast if I’d stayed on the highway probably took me almost 3 hours!
- I eventually made it to my campsite on a gorgeous blue-green lake, set up camp, and fell asleep
- It was another damp, chilly night, but in the morning the sun finally re-appeared. I had a great day of beautiful riding all the way into Lake Louise, stopping at several lakes and overlooks on the way. Unfortunately, it was still pretty cold outside, so I didn’t attempt any swimming, but I did do some chilly wading.
- At Bow lake I met a group of 6 teachers who had ridden from Jasper, but staying in hostels along the way. We rode together for the last 20 miles or so – I’d pass them as they waited to regroup, and they would pass me on the hills
- Right before we got into town we encountered a wildlife traffic jam – I assumed people were just gawking at another brown bear (I had already seen 3), but it was a big grizzly! I didn’t get a good picture though, as I was trying to keep cars between me and it
- I got some pizza and groceries in lake Louise, and then headed to the overflow campground, which was essentially just a large parking lot (the regular campground is reservation-only). I did meet a cool couple from Scotland who had been riding for months but had rented a car for the last few days of their trip – they stored my food for me so I didn’t have to hang it!
- The next morning I wasted a ton of time figuring out logistics for where to camp that night, and also what to do about my phone. It is still somewhere usable, but at one point the whole screen became unreadable – it fixed itself after a reboot, but I’m not sure how long I have before it fully conks out. None of the shops reasonably near my route had a new screen in stock, so I decided to just order a kit and do it myself. I scheduled a warmshowers host in Kimberley, and shipped the parts to his address. Also, in the process of all this, somehow the photos app used up all my data and I had to get a new data bundle (which is incredibly frustrating to do when you barely have service, and are out of data)
- The end result of this is that I didn’t truly get riding until almost 2 pm (despite getting up at 7am), and the only campsite I could get a reservation for was still about 55 miles away. The ride was mostly downhill, but I still had several pretty big climbs. It was a great ride, but I just didn’t have time to take many breaks, and missed out on a few short hikes/scenic spots I would have checked out if I had more time. In the end, I pulled into the campsite just after 8pm, with 73 miles for the day. I had just enough time to take a much needed chilly rinsing plunge in the Kootenay River
- This morning I slept in a bit, had a bit of a climb to begin the day, and then a fun long descent into Radium Hot Springs. I decided that I deserved a nice long soak, so I hung out at the hot springs pool for a couple hours. Many people with how long I stayed in the cold plunge pool – I guess it’s all those alpine lakes I like to swim in.
- After that, a pretty easy day of riding along the Columbia River valley, including some really nice quiet back roads. Now I’m camping on the banks of the mighty Columbia, which is really just a little stream here – I’m right below the headwaters. Tomorrow I hope to make it to my warmshowers host in Kimberley, and continue my journey back west!
