Drumheller Loop

July 17, 2019

Wait! What? Yes, I can hear you yelling at the screen, "What happened to Banff and Jasper? You were supposed to ride up there!!!" Yep, that was for sure the plan. However, funny thing this year in Alberta as well as BC. The weather is not being so very cooperative. Every day that we planned to cycle in the Jasper/Banff area it poured rain!!! We were very frustrated by the end and just happy to escape from the mountains looking for better cycling weather. Maybe next year? We shall see! If you are at all curious about how the trip up there went, you can check out the blog over at thepricesofwandering.com - the post about that particular adventure will be up next week.

So, we missed out on what looked like some fantastic cycling all along the Jasper to Banff corridor, but what about Drumheller? It is known for the dinosaur museum (which is very cool) but cycling? We had a day of no rain and took full advantage of it, deciding to ride the Dinosaur Trail, a 48 km loop through the Badlands here. Why are they called Badlands by the way? Well, apparently the original people called the land bad because of the extreme temperatures, difficult terrain and lack of water. Perfect place to ride, don't you think? Ha! Well, for once the not-so-nice weather worked in our favour as the hills are a vey usual green for this time of year and the temperature quite a bit cooler than normal. So, yes, perfect cycling weather.

We headed out from the World's Largest Dinosaur (the visitor's centre) where we left the van for the day, thinking that it would be a good, safe place to park. Loaded up with water and snacks, we knew that there would be a couple of significant climbs for us and so we planned to take our time and stop lots. We have not had the opportunity to do a lot of cycling in preparation for this trip and so are woefully out of "bike shape". We decided that we would tackle the first big hill and stop where we had wild camped last night at the Horsethief Canyon Lookout for a break and decide weather to tackle the rest of the loop from there. The hill was pretty long and steep (especially for the shape our legs were in!), but we made it to the top without too much difficulty, which, as it turned out, was a problem. We enjoyed our little break and decided (well, to be honest, I talked Jim into it) to keep on going. It had been so long since we'd had a good day to ride I was just itching to keep on going, despite knowing there was a 2km long hill with a 12% grade going down to the river and then then same going up along the route. Surely we could do it? We've done many hills before and I've gotten the hang of hill climbing now. What could possibly be bad about challenging ourselves today? I'm sure you can guess!

These two are from Horsetheif Canyon Lookout the night before - pretty amazing views!

We did enjoy the screaming downhill to the little ferry that would take us across the Red River. We pretty much rode the brakes the whole way down, but it was still a lot of fun. And the ferry ride was too!

Blue skies and so much Canola being grown here - beautiful!

But then came the climb back up and oh my, was it STEEP!!! Yes, I knew what it was going in, and of course on the way down the other side I had it in my head we were going to have to climb again, but oh was it hard!!! All those months off the bikes really came back to haunt us now. We had to resort to the "I will ride up to that next post" strategy, but in the end, Jim rode the whole way and I just pushed for a bit, so at the top we were happy to have accomplished this. We could still do it! Yay!!!

Hahahahha!!!! The look on my face says it all!!! I am sooooo out of shape!!!!

We rode on until we reached the lookout across from the other one. This one, the Orkney Lookout was going to be our boondocking site for the night so we were curious about how it would compare. As it turns out, the view was even better from here! We enjoyed our break, congratulating ourselves on getting here and looking forward to the nice downhill coming up and then a short ride to Drumheller.

Did you see it coming? Yep. The downhill was nice, but it was straight into a serious headwind and once we got onto the flat part, we had to fight it the rest of the way into town. I kept thinking it couldn't be too much further, but when we reached the turnoff towards Drumheller and saw the 11km sign, we both groaned. Normally this would not be hard at all, but given how tired we were from the big climb and how tough the wind was, it was just a slog the whole rest of the way into town.

We stopped here to take some pictures, just so we could catch our breath

However, we finally reached the big dinosaur and thankfully found that there was a community pool right there. We paid our $4.00 to use the showers and both went into wash off the sweat from today's ride.

Looking back, of course we should have taken it a bit easier and kept the ride to 35 km, which would have been just fine, but you know, sometimes you just push yourself past what you think you can do and it actually feels good. Exhausting for sure, but good. We know we can still cycle a decent distance in a day and we are hopeful that the weather gods will look kindly on us as we continue to head across this giant country in search of good rides.

Would we recommend cycling in Drumheller? Heck yes! You can enjoy a day of dinosaur exploring at the world famous Royal Tyrell Museum and then take a day to enjoy the spectacular scenery along the Dinosaur Trail. The Badlands might be bad for farming, but they are pretty cool to cycle through!

Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles)
Total: 85 km (53 miles)

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