Day 1

Our first cycling day started right behind the magnificent Banff Springs Hotel, the one that you always see in the photos when you see a photo of Banff. A ridiculously expensive in town in a beautiful setting, I’m glad I was there but would need to go back, everything is outrageously expensive!

We followed pretty much well built trails shared with some pedestrians but we didn’t see many people on it once we got more than a mile away from the hotel. The first day of a ride, when nothing hurts, it seems like 60 days of this won’t be so bad! Little did I know what is ahead…

I did have a moment today when I was walking from tent area to cooking area that the “pacing” I’ve been living at during my 36 year AFD experience is not really normal, and that there are other time pacing paradigms one can live in. It was a small but important insight for me…

Grrr! Rain and wind all night starting about midnight, slept shitty!! Barely slept once the wind and rain started. Feet froze… Very cold morning along the beautiful wilderness single track trail beside Spray Lake.

Day 2

Woke to mostly clear sky! Took forever to deal with my nearly completely soaked tent. Dave and Chris are less experienced cycling, but certainly far more experienced at wilderness camping than I am. Learned a few things about how to properly attach a rain flyover attend so that extends beyond the pad clots., Makes all the difference in the world when it rains! 

Today was more single track, lots of uphill, spectacular scenery in the Canadian Rockies. 

We ended at Boulton Creek campground with the Aussie couple we met along the way. We hoped the little camp store there would have beer, but no such luck. Had to drown my sorrows in a scoop of double chocolate chunk espresso ice cream! Very yum!!!! 

The Aussies plan is to travel from there start in Whistler, all the way to Patagonia eventually. We shared campsite, $26cn/5= about $3.90us each. They are nice folks! In their 30’s and quit their jobs to do the great divide ride and more… 

What a treat after an exhausting 35m day, through a mixture of single track, ski trails, gravel road, a couple miles of pavement, and world class scenery!

The trip quotient so far:

Spectacular beauty: 9

Difficulty: 9

Weather: 7

Food: 6

Regrets for doing it: range of 1-9 (1 most of the time, 9 only when I’m pushing my loaded 90ish pound bike up a trail too steep to ride!!

The bear precautions at the formal campground include storing your food in steel boxes provided nearby, especially for bikers or campers without cars. Etiquette includes brushing your teeth and storing toothpaste in the box too since toothpaste smells like food. Apparent we are riding through “bear alley” or some similar moniker.

Day 3

MONSTER pusher hill to start elk pass, but we all made it! Riding today with the Aussies Richelle and Shane (pronounced Shine, of course…) Stopped at Weary Creek campground for lunch after a glorious day on a power line right of way. Not a cloud in the sky! Lunch usually consists of pita bread, peanut butter, jelly, jalapeño jack cheese. An awesome satisfying combination! Still eating food we carried from Banff. 

Today was the day, pushing my 90lb loaded surly 3/4m up the trail that I realized I have now found something harder to do than retiring was!!!

Dave and Chris are fond of taking naps just after lunch. In fact, Chris say polls indicate that 98% of all retirees believe naps are the thing that most define “the lifestyle.” Wait, I think that refers to something else altogether! I should call it “the retired life” or some such thing. Whatever!

We are generally following a book that was written by a guy some years ago, he suggests certain days that take advantage of towns and campgrounds when available. We rode two thirds of the day four route on day three, so it was a pretty long day.

We stopped at blue Lake Campground, a small lake beside a recreational road, we met several people in there, including Juan and Alithia, both hospital lab techs from Calgary. They were very friendly, gave us a cold beer which was to die for! Amazing how good a cold beer can be!!!

A note about dinners: Chris and Dave I think he more healthy than I tend to. Dave is lead cook. And everything we eat is from freeze-dried bags, we get water in the river and filter it rather than try to carry freshwater from each town, that would be impossible. Boiled water, pour into the freeze-dried mountain house or some other brand bag, had some couscous for more bulk, and I haven’t had a bad dinner yet! It’s amazing how good food taste when you work hard all day!

Later in the evening, two brothers on a fishing trip stayed at the campground. One lives in Calgary, one lives in Minneapolis. Both retired. One of them said they could tell that I either wasn’t retired or newly retired because they said I had a look of worry on my face all the time. Ouch!

The Aussies were at the campground is well, they’re nice folks and we may match up with them a few more days, not sure if they’re going to take the alternate route from here, which is much much easier! Apparently we will not do that easier one!!

Day 4

Got down to 40° overnight, I’m barely prepared for that temperature, I have to wear three layers of clothing, put my puffy vest over my feet at the end of the sleeping bag, and pull the sleeping bag cover over the top my head to keep warm enough. When I mentioned to Dave and Chris, they just say things like, oh I was too hot! Clearly my bag is not functioning to its rating 35°.

Up in the morning and had coffee with the two guys and I were daily oatmeal which I’ve certainly grown to appreciate! Got on the bikes and it was just a 15 mile day into Elkford, BC. Very small but beautiful town primarily here to service the coal mine workers. 

Riding through this valley, with the huge coal mine off on the left distance, we started to see smoke apparently from all of the Montana wildfires. It appears we are heading directly into them, so hopefully the air quality won’t become an issue for us. Where I’m sitting now, I can see mountains off in the distance barely through smoke, it is thick enough that you can certainly smell it and somewhat taste it. 

We have been around 5500′ so far and you can sure feel the altitude!! Especially on the steep hills when you have to push the bike up the hill because it’s just too damn steep to ride, can’t remember breathing as hard and deep for as long as we have in a long time! (Maybe in Nepal at 12,000′, but that was only one day!!!)

The next three days we will be traveling through an area called “grizzly bear Highway” and we talked to some biologist guy that stopped at the campground last night that says there’s known to be at least 117 grizzly bears in the Corridor we will be passing through in the next three days. That sounds like a lot! I broke down and bought bear spray today! Actually he was retired from the giant Teck coal mine here, we could see it off in the distance riding this morning. Huge operation, most of the coal taken out on rail.

I believe I packed pretty efficiently for this trip, but there’s no getting around the fact that carry less weight is better, so I just shipped a box of stuff that I really absolutely don’t need back to Oregon, lightning my food by about five huge pounds!

Closing notes for this post, we only have cell service in the towns, so I will post periodically. The photos. Below are somewhat in order sequence I think, but not really sure once I upload them what order they go in. I’m not going to try and describe each one, you can make up your own descriptions!

Finally, I didn’t think this trip would be as hard as it is, but considering we’re only on day four, our bodies really haven’t adjusted to this level of work. We are on a 60 day route plan to Mexico, based on the book’s suggested route, though we may not hold to that consistently. I’m sure we will find some days to stay in town and take a break, but generally expect sixtyish will be what we stick to. 
I’m learning a lot about wilderness travel and camping and mapping and water sources and the many uses of couscous that I didn’t know previously, also learning more about tolerance, life pacing, really learning more about lots of things. One of the brothers I mentioned earlier, he told us his wife of many years died last year of Alzheimer’s. He is retired and spends some months of the year here with his Calgary brother. He was probably about my age in appearance, he talked about how after that happened, he knew it was just time for him to take a different look at how to live the rest of his life. In some way, I suppose that’s why I’m out here too…

Ps: apologize for all the selfies…