Lake Louise, AB - Golden, BC - British Columbia 2019

July 18, 2019

Lake Louise, AB - Golden, BC

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Despite medicating, I was abruptly awakened at 2 AM by water pouring through the wall near my head. It turned out to be someone in the room above us flushing the toilet. But the sound startled me wide awake. I tossed and turned until 3 AM, when I gave up and looked at the phone for an hour. I finally went back to sleep to be awakened by water again - this time by torrential rain outside. Oh, boy . . . at least the rain we've been riding through has been gentle. Most importantly, I haven't gotten cold. It rained most of the morning. The entire time, my phone said cloudy . . . . we went to breakfast with Jim and Genny. It was an excellent breakfast with egg omelettes (I think fresh made, they had a kitchen), sausage, hash browns, the usual cereals and breads. Fresh fruit and yogurt, etc. The good breakfast made me feel slightly better about the expensive room.

Jacinto wasn't impressed with the poor screen quality on the TV. The internet wasn't very good, but I give them a break on that as we are in the middle of the mountains.

The boss must not have liked my bike in the back area. Now it is in the lobby under the stairs. Jim and Genny have a day off here. They are taking the shuttle to the chateau for high tea. At this instant it is sunny and in the 40's. With the humidity it is quite cold outside and we have Kicking Horse Pass to climb. There's fresh snow in the mountains. I plan to wear tights all day.

I've asked Jacinto to ride with me today. I'm sitting here killing time as he doesn't like to leave early, although he allows that we should start soon to take advantage of the sun. We haven't seen sun for a couple of days. We need to get back over the mountains and heading south to sunshine. South might mean a headwind. But I sure don't like cold and wet. It looks like we might get rain as far as Revelstoke, but the high temperature there is 86 - so at least it won't be a cold rain.

Killing time makes me nervous. Why do I still get nervous at this stage of my cycling career?

It took a little while to haul stuff to the bikes and get them loaded. I was very warm and starting to sweat. I debated taking off my tights, but decided it wasn't quite that sunny out. We headed out of town on Village Dr., which was directly in front of the Mountaineer Motel. There was a traffic lady again today at the four way stop. I wonder why they have someone directing traffic at a four way?

In the space of one mile we got onto a short bike path, but had to exit it as it paralleled Highway 1. The path does continue on, if you're interested in a day ride.

We've had so many days of tailwinds, we didn't know what to make of the headwind. It felt quite significant. I almost welcomed the passing traffic, as it broke the wind.

Starting out, Highway 1 wasn't bad. It was a divided highway, two lanes on our side with a wide shoulder. It was noisy, but fine. Road surface conditions were excellent. The USA could take some lessons on how to maintain road infrastructure. I was enjoying the partial sunshine. Jacinto stopped to add long fingered gloves. I did also. It wasn't quite that nice out. Perhaps 40 degrees? Jacinto stopped several times and took photos. I think he was killing time to allow me to keep up. RWGPS said we had 2,900 feet of climbing today (end result was 1,865). But the trend for the day was downhill. RWGPS gave me 4,299 of descent. No wonder I could keep up with Jacinto!

We had 400 feet of climbing to the top. It was a gentle climb. No sign, but there was a bathroom. It had only been 45 minutes, but I decided I should take advantage of the bathroom while I could. In the end, there were bathrooms all along the highway. Much more frequent than bathrooms in the USA.

On the climb, there was an adequate shoulder. The downhill was another story. The shoulder decreased. Exactly at mile 12.35 for the day, there was significant dirt/gravel from rain runoff in ridges all over the shoulder. It was impossible not to ride over the ridges, because the highway traffic was too busy to get in the lane. I slowed WAY down for this section, maybe 1/2 mile.

Mark in the motel office said they've done significant work on the road, widening it out where possible. He says it used to be two lanes with no shoulder the entire distance. As is, Jacinto guesses maybe six miles of virtually no shoulder. Traffic was heavy, but polite. The divided highway had long since disappeared. There was a passing lane where possible.

Rain started on the downhill. I got my jacket out. It got heavier. I occasionally had to wipe my sunglasses. Many times I wished for clear safety glasses. I prefer to wear some sort of glasses as I have contact lenses and the wind dries my eyes out, plus any dirt that gets in my eyes hurts like heck.

It didn't matter much that we couldn't see the view because there was no chance to look around. I spent my time looking back in my mirrors.

Jacinto was way behind me and I couldn't see him at all. I was concerned that something happened to him, either traffic related or a flat tire. It was a relief when he caught up with me. It was still raining significantly at the time, I told him to go on ahead. There's no use both of us suffering in the wet any longer than necessary.

Jacinto said he didn't think he'd be much ahead. The terrain today was quite friendly. RWGPS says it was a huge downhill day. I would have called it more of a level day, but perhaps that was the headwind slowing me down. At least it wasn't a cold, climbing day. Or cold and descending. That's worse. Jacinto was correct - I did keep up. He stopped at the Kicking Horse rest area. At that point we had both put our computers away because of the rain and we weren't sure how much further we had to go. I pulled mine out. Another 10-12 miles. Jacinto thought that wasn't too far, but in my opinion, not too far is 2-3 miles. The rain seemed to have mostly quit. I took off my heavy gloves and went back to the regular long fingered gloves.

At this point it was mostly a regular busy traffic sort of ride with rain added in. Little did we know that was about to change. A sign appeared for Ten Mile Hill (ten miles to town?) followed by a brake check sign. Oh. That means a steep descent. We were funneled into a narrow canyon with chain mesh barriers hanging from the rock cliff tops to keep the rocks from falling on the roadway. The shoulder completely disappeared. My elbow was all but brushing the rock wall on one side with rushing traffic passing at my left elbow. Traffic was funneled down to two lanes and was moving slow. Thankfully. I pulled over several times to let traffic past. Everyone was polite and I never felt in danger. At one of the pull overs, Jacinto was waiting for me. We agreed that this wasn't so fun and we continued on together. I heaved a sigh of relief when we got out of the canyon and the roadway widened. I was so ready to be to town. Thankfully it wasn't raining. That was on less concern. I had even gotten warm enough that I'd pulled my hood off and changed out of the thick gloves.

We saw a huge sign for Fontaine Road. It said Upper Road to Donald. I've checked that out on RWGPS. The google guy doesn't go there. I've tried the satellite view and it's too grainy to show much. We are going to ask in the office when we go to dinner. I think it's dirt. There's also 1,800 feet of climbing compared to 665 on the highway.

The Ponderosa Motel is large. We pulled up to the office. The workers were outside smoking. Holly (owner?) said they would be with us shortly. We were early, but we had requested an early check in. We had quite a discussion about where to put the bikes. They offered an empty, locked room that we could get in to after 7 AM. Certainly we wouldn't be that early, but two nights in a row of schlepping our gear off the bike and into the room is tiring. They had a large overhang. We asked if we could just park the bikes under the overhang and lock them up. We ended up with a room at the end of one building and our bikes went in the covered walkway between the buildings. Holly and Mark were extra helpful and nice. Our room is average nice. The TV is better than last night. $145., less than half of what another night in Lake Louise would have cost. Jim and Genny went up to see the lake, but did not have high tea at the tea house. It was too cold and rainy.

We are debating between Chinese and Korean for dinner. I'm ready for some veggies. Our lodging is right on the highway. Town is several miles away. We have a short 16 mile ride tomorrow to Donald. We need to bring dinner food and breakfast food. Breakfast is very important because we have a 56 mile, 4,200 feet of climbing day from Donald and into Canyon Hot Springs. The day would have been divided up much better if we had been able to stay at Heather Mountain Lodge . . . I've already complained about that once this journal. Probably I will mention it again as we pass by.

It's sunny out. We have our laundry drying outside. My bicycle has drawn quite a bit of interest today, including an elderly oriental fellow at the motel. Right when I was trying to get my stuff inside and get out of the wet clothes. But I tried to be polite because everyone here was so nice. We've only met one unfriendly Canadian - the clerk at the grocery in Kimberley. Jim says she must be a transplant and not a real Canadian.

Later - We ate dinner at the Korean Restaurant down the block. It was good, but we both would have eaten another plate. We went across the street to the DQ for a blizzard to share to fill the empty spots. Jacinto then went to the gas station to buy food for Donald. He has two bomb burritos (thanks to Wayne for teaching him about these 1,100 calorie treats), and two boxes of Hot Pocket type sandwiches. Jacinto is set for dinner and breakfast. He offered to share with me. I'm going to explore other options.

We have asked for a late check out at the motel. It sounds like Jim and Genny are going to get on the road early enough that we could have lunch together here and then have a leisurely 15 mile ride to Donald. We shall see about the rain and it looks like a guaranteed head wind. But, it's a short ride and there's no reason to be in a hurry to get to Donald. It might make Old Station look good. That's a long running joke from 2015 when Jim refused to have a layover day at Old Station, having worked in the area as a college student. I thought it would be fine as we had lodging and a well reviewed restaurant nearby. On a technical level, it was fine. But on a real level, we should have kept moving.

Jacinto prepares his umbrella to keep cars at a distance. Notice the sunshine and the shorts. That will change soon.

At this moment the clouds had lifted enough to see the mountains around us.

I like those patches of blue. We haven't seen sunshine for a couple of days.

Here's a dramatic cut through the rock. We are on the downhill.

Jacinto has a lot more clothes on now. We are drying out at this point. Notice his deployed umbrella. Too bad he can't figure out how to use it while he's riding.

It's raining and the highway has heavy traffic. I'm sure this Backroads group finished their tour on the Icefields Parkway. That's excellent riding if it's dry.

Today's ride: 52 miles (84 km)
Total: 443 miles (713 km)

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