Waiting on Godot - Smoke, Rain and Snow Delays! - Fire On The Mountain - A Small Section of the Great Divide Ride 2021

August 16, 2021

Waiting on Godot - Smoke, Rain and Snow Delays!

It just seems Fitting for This Year

Just waiting for the locusts to swarm in.

The week before our original planned departure date of Monday 16th August was glorious. The wildfire smoke had largely cleared, the temperature had dropped to a more normal mid to high 20’s (that’s Celsius for neighbours to the south) and we had a great week mountain biking on local trails with some friends who were visiting from Ontario.

Friday, 13th August. Kirsten on the High Rockies Trail alongside Spray Lakes. Glorious day! This is actually part of the GDMBR but most folks who do this section ride the (very dusty and very washboarded) Smith-Dorien road that runs right beside Spray Lake. It is a horrible ride with dust, washboard and a lot of traffic from people heading out to hike or mountain bike in this glorious area. The High Rockies mtb trail ~20 - 50 m of vertical elevation above the lake is pure bliss to ride, but it’s a very tough ride with a loaded bike!

Friday 13th August on the High Rockies Trail …. Trail side snack - wild raspberries!

So after a week of perfect biking weather, and some very sweet mountain biking around Canmore, we were ready to set off on our adventure. The weather forecast was looking a bit unnerving with rain and cooler temps predicted, but it has been pretty inaccurate lately so we were hopeful that we would be riding.

Our son was going to be staying at our place and looking after the dog and he was also going to drive us to the Elk Pass trail head (so we didn’t have to ride the Smith Dorian or the High Rockies single track on loaded bikes).

So we get up early Monday morning, eagerly anticipating the start of a bike tour …..

Only to find this. 6:30 am. It’s like we are in a campfire! Normally this view looks like this

Start day! Monday morning in Canmore. Heavy smoke … can’t see the end of the street let alone the 2700m mountain that’s at the end of it!

Eternally optimistic we are though! We load up the truck and drive south to Kananaskis lakes and the Elk Pass trailhead and guess what? It’s exactly the same as Canmore. Eternally optimistic or insane? Your choice.

Elk pass trail head. Same Same as Canmore, and yes there are 2700 - 3000 m mountains in the background of this picture. Trust me. Callum looks more bummed out than Kirsten!

Well, we are not insane and we decided to pull the pin and delay the trip until all this blows over.

Kirsten’s Air Quality app … off the charts!

Headlines on the CBC news today … not a great thing to be in the news for!

To top it off, the forecast was calling for rain tonight through tomorrow and daytime highs at K’ Lakes of 5 °C for tomorrow. That invariably means snow at higher elevations, and this time the weather forecast was right!

A friend sent us this picture of Hwy 40 on the south side of Highwood pass, Tuesday morning!

The picture above is HWY 40 on the south side of Highwood pass. We were here on our Highwood loop trip in June. It was taken on Tuesday morning. Had we started biking on Monday, we would have been camped about 6 km west of here in the Elk Valley (just on the other side of the mountains on the right of this picture) at about the same elevation.

We like snow. But not in August! Fingers crossed that we get a relaunch on August 27th … we have dog sitting and a ride to the trailhead lined up for then, and we’re still packed!

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Scott AndersonSorry to hear of your bad luck of course, but glad to hear your self-report that you aren’t insane. Waiting for confirmation from independent sources.
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3 years ago

Lyle McLeodTo Scott AndersonErratic and slightly eccentric, but definitely not insane!
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3 years ago