Another cold morning, someone said it was only 3 degrees last night , burrrr !!!. So today almost from the get go we started climbing to get over Kicking Horse Pass , it was 7 km of mostly 6% climbing and all in all not all that bad. on the way up I saw my second bear of the trip, he was a youngster grazing on dandelions on the side of the road , we all had to go past him and he showed very little interest in us.
After the summit we turned off onto the old highway that is now closed to traffic and had it all to ourselves , we came to the old “Continental Divide marker” were the water of the Divide stream split and one stream flows west to the Pacific and the other flows east towards the Atlantic.
Also it marked the boarder between British Columbia and Alberta , we of course stopped and did our usual picture tacking. From that point on Bob Rhiannon and I cycled on together for the rest of the day. As we were leaving the old highway we noticed it was blocked by red tape with a bear warning but since we were so close to the end we just went on. Later we found out that the park rangers stopped the rest of the group from going through as they were tracking three grizzly bears !!!
From there we went to Lake Louise which is just beautiful , took more pictures and found out about the grizzlies , the rest of the group had to double back and then make a long tough climb into Lake Louise.
Most of the rest of the day was a peaceful ride along the Bow Valley, with a hike up Johnson Canyon to see the water falls , and twice we sighted elk on the side of the road just munching away ( I got some nice pictures )
Now we are camped outside of Banff enjoying our last night of mountains as tomorrow we will be in the prairies , I think I am going to miss them as the are inspiring and they made every climb worthwhile .
I have been very pleased with my climbing abilities over long stretches and this trip has thought me a lot, mostly to just relax and climb, the top always comes and the descents are sweet !!!
Total ridden today: 92.8 - average :18.5 - ridding time: 4.59
Congratulations Dave! Wow, through one whole province already! Well done! Again, great pictures and stories. You will be able to put this experience into a book when you are finished. Hope the weather out there warms up a bit for you. Look forward to your next posting. Ride safe and have fun!
ReplyDeleteBob
Keep on Smiling!