Day 3 - Sparwood to Pollock Creek Campsite - Fire On The Mountain - A Small Section of the Great Divide Ride 2021

August 29, 2021

Day 3 - Sparwood to Pollock Creek Campsite

Newtons Law Applied to Roads

In classic Canadian road touring fashion, we got up fairly early, packed up and left the hotel, and then rode a few km's to Timmy's for breakfast. Some things just don't change.

It was a glorious morning though. Not a cloud in the sky, which meant that at 7:30 in the morning in the Rockies it was cold! After consuming our standard Timmy breakfast bagel w/ coffee (L) and tea (K) and getting a sandwich to stuff in our panniers for lunch, we were on our way by 8:30.

The next part of the route is the 'Flathead Alternative' to the regular GDMBR. The regular route continues south, more or less paralleling Hwy 3 and then 93 south to the US border. The Flathead route is further east and hugs the actual divide south through the Flathead valley before turning west just a few kms north of the Canada/US border.

After that little geography lesson, that means we headed east along Hwy 3 towards the BC Alberta border to start. It was a relatively flat 12 km ride along a surprisingly busy Hwy 3 to the Corbin turn-off. We then headed south along the Corbin rode, a paved road in great condition that leads to the now abandoned Corbin mine and the similarly abandoned ghost town of Corbin. Since this road also parallels the train tracks that run (ran?) to Corbin, it's a consistent but very gentle 2-3 % climb. Great road, clear blue skies, temperatures rising, absolutely no traffic, the day is off to a great start.

As usual I'm stopping to take a few pic's and Kirsten's getting quite a bit ahead of me. I see her pull over and getting her phone/camera out. Oh great, she's probably setting up to get a picture of me riding in this beautiful setting! Once I get about 100 m away from her, she packs her phone away and starts cycling away, completely oblivious to my existence. A bit perplexed, I pick up the pace and catch up to and ask her why she pulled over.

Roadkill. A fresh deer carcass in the ditch that was now almost fully consumed, eg. ribs fully cleaned off . I now know where I stand in the photo pecking order.

She did pull over a little bit later to take a sympathy shot of me.

In short order we were in Corbin and although listed as a ghost town, there were still a few people living there, and the mine, although no longer in operation, has not been fully reclaimed so there was still a lot of infrastructure and some activity at it. Corbin also represented the last of the 'easy riding'. We were now 'off pavement' and 'off grid' for the next few days.

The impact of this was immediate. Within the first 100 m of heading south on the Flathead forestry road we encountered foot deep muddy ruts filled with water. There are obviously a LOT more trucks and ATV's using this road than bikes.

The road conditions improved a bit after a few km's but the muddy ruts were replaced by rough 'mother nature's cobblestones'. Ten km's of this brought us to the summit of what I'm calling Flathead pass, and then we had a 17 km 'run' down to the campsite at Pollock alongside the Flathead river.

You generally think of downhills as carefree riding where you can take in the views and just enjoy the moment. The pic's later will dispel those notions!

Although the day was beautiful, cloudless sky, perfect mid 20's temps, no wind and no 'nasty' bugs, the road conditions were the anthesis of the Corbin road. This is the reason for the slightly cryptic sub-title for the day. Perfect smooth pavement for the first half of the day. . equal and opposite reaction for the second half!

A good portion of the downhill road had over the years turned into the main course of the creek running down from the pass. Although the water is not deep, it's there, and in the spring is brings along a whole bunch of bowling ball sized rocks which it deposits along the 'road'.

Given that we did have ideal weather conditions and this was the first time we've encountered biking like this, it was kind of a fun adventure. Tough going (we were faster going up than down!) but doable and fun .. for the first time.

Adding to the adventure aspect, it was pretty clear that we were on our own too. We did have two ATV's come by just as we were having lunch near the summit of the pass, and we did see one lone tire tire track along the trail. Other than that, no other evidence of humans! Not much for big wildlife either. We did see a few deer on the Corbin road, but once getting onto the flathead it was just more Blue Grouse .... and thousands of butterflies. Pic's to follow and we think they were Green or Hoary Commas.

The campsite at Polloack recreation site was wonderful. It's right beside the Flathead river and has 5 well spaced out sites. We were the only people there so we used one for cooking, one for sleeping and the furthest away one for caching our food.

And the food .... a great home cooked, dried and then rehydrated, Pasta Norma with a few Hob Nob's for dessert.

We managed to have a not-too-cold wash in the river and we retired early for a great night's sleep.

Heart

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SOTD - Shake Rattle & Roll by Big Joe Turner ... this pretty much sums up the ride down from Flathead pass