May 18, 2016
Yoho National Park: Enter Lucy Liu
The next morning I reached Yoho National Park, at the entrance to which there was a bit of a turn-off into a lay-by area with a ticket booth. I continued straight on the highway. I tried to keep my head down but found myself glancing up and over at the ticket booth, and behind the glass window I caught sight of a park official waving at me. He might have been waving at me because I was supposed to go over and buy a park pass, but I didn't really want to go over and buy a park pass, so I just waved back cheerfully and kept cycling.
It was another gentle and easy climb and before too long I found myself at the turnoff for Emerald Lake. This was a ten kilometre each-way detour on an out-and-back road with lots of construction work, that might have felt frustrating but gained quite an exhilarating edge after I passed the 'park passes required beyond this point' sign.
Emerald Lake was worth taking the risk for (although perhaps not worth paying for the park pass for.) It was pretty, quite big, and it had a turquoise colour that had clearly been a major factor in the name-giving process. There were snowy peaks around it too of course, although it was also a bit touristy, with a collection of cabins at one end and kayak and canoe rentals available. Actually, had Dea been with me I might have been up for a paddle, but alone it seemed silly, so I settled for walking on the hiking trail that looped around the lake instead. I didn't notice the sign saying it was a 5.3 kilometre walk though, so it took quite a bit longer than expected. A beautiful place though, no doubt about that.
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I retraced my steps back to the main road and continued a few more kilometres until I was in the small community of Field, where I stopped at the visitor centre. I went in and asked whether it was possible to hike to Lake O'Hara. I'd heard about this stunning lake in the depths of Yoho National Park that limits the number of tourists that visit it by only allowing a very small number on daily shuttle buses that run to it (you have to apply for a bus ticket exactly three months in advance and the places sell out in minutes.) It was too early in the year for the buses to run, but I'd heard that it was also possible to hike to the lake and I wanted to do that the next day. Unfortunately my hopes were soon shut down by the visitor centre staff who told me that there was still a lot of snow up on the trail, and that it was going to rain anyway.
Unable to visit Lake O'Hara I was extremely pleased that I hadn't forked out on any park passes, but I was also looking for something else to offer a little interest to my ride, and outside of the visitor centre I might have found it. Another touring bike, a very small one, was locked up. I looked around, unsure who it belonged to, and was taken by surprise when another touring cyclist arrived, cycling up to the entrance area. It was a young female and I asked her if she was with this other bike. She said she was not, she was riding alone. At that point another young female emerged from the visitor centre and went over to the first bike. Thus we now had two solo female cycle tourists appearing in my life approximately four seconds from one another which, considering I had previously spent four years cycling around looking for one without any luck, was a bit of a funny coincidence. Of course I wasn't interested in these solo female cyclists in a romantic sense anyway, because I had a solo female cyclist of my own now, (who, rather annoyingly, was on a different continent. Oh, life!)
The girl who had just arrived was on a short three-day trip and was going the other way, to end in Golden, although she had previously completed a cross-Canada ride with her boyfriend. She told us that we could expect lots of bears ahead, and that she had been held up by a grizzly, by which I do not mean that a grizzly bear had pointed a gun up at her and demanded cash, but that a grizzly at the side of the road was not something she had wanted to cycle past. She'd got past it eventually though, which was why she was now here.
The grizzly story intrigued me, but it had a different, much more terrifying impact on the other cyclist. It seemed like this was just the latest in a very long line of problems to have afflicted this poor girl, which she explained to me with a voice working a hundred miles an hour: “My front wheel keeps coming loose, I don't know why, my bike keeps breaking, a creepy man was harrassing me, I ran out of food and water, I saw a bear, I nearly got hit by a truck, people keep refusing to cycle with me, or they agree to cycle with me and then abandon me, I lost all my food.”
This girl, Vivian, was very short, and looked Asian, though she had a Canadian accent, the result of being born and bred in Ontario to parents from China and Hong Kong. Her goal was to cycle across Canada, from Vancouver to St Johns, Newfoundland. She was doing quite well so far, considering she had never ridden a bicycle for more than a couple of hours at a time before, although she had just accepted a lift for ten kilometres to make it here after losing all her food. I offered her some of mine and she gratefully accepted, while I took a look at her front wheel.
The other girl had already left, but Vivian and I were going the same way and I was happy to have some company. She complained a lot, but she also smiled a lot, and cycling with her seemed like it would, if nothing else, be a lot more interesting than cycling alone. She told me that she had already had many cyclists turn down her pleas to accompany her, including apparently a brother and sister cycling across the country together who had actually agreed to cycle with her, and then cycled off never to be seen again. “I'm very slow” Vivian said to me several times, “Are you sure you want to cycle with me, I'm very slow?” Well, I'd never met a cycle tourist who rode as slow as me before, so I hoped she'd live up to that promise.
We began to cycle together, with me just in front, and I thought about how this was actually perfect. It sounded like Vivian was having a hard time of it, and maybe I could help her out now. Maybe this was going to give my ride a bit more of a purpose. Hell, maybe this was it, maybe this was the big plot twist for the sequel. Yes, I could see it now. Vivian (Lucy Liu) and I would form a quirky and unlikely friendship as we made our way together across this huge country, me helping her overcome her obstacles and finally reach her goal of St Johns. Yes that was it, the plot of the sequel was going to be all about that, with Vivian finally standing triumphant at the end of the country. Wow, I might not even be in the final scene of this movie.
All was going well for a few kilometres, until we arrived at the first climb, and behind me Vivian stepped off her bike and began to push. “The hills are too steep for me,” she said, “I have to push!” I couldn't believe it. Had she been doing this all the way since Vancouver? I stopped and checked her bike, and saw that she was in completely the wrong gear. “You're in the wrong gear,” were my exact words I believe, and then I offered to ride the bike and put it in the right gear for her. This was an offer I had not thought through, and I laughed as I tried to cycle the miniature bicycle up the steep hill, flicking the gears and looking for all the world like a clown as I did so.
My efforts were somewhat in vain, as, even in the lowest gear, Vivian cycled the bike for only a short time before resorting back to walking and pushing again. I went on ahead and then stood and waited for her, secretly delighted to have finally found a sidekick so hapless and really actually genuinely slower than me! It was perfect. When Vivian finally caught up to me we paused for a moment to talk some more.
“You should really have a mirror.” I told her.
“I had one, but I threw it away. I threw a lot of stuff away.”
“Well, you're very bright at least.” I said.
“I don't think so,” replied my new companion, screwing up her face, “If I was bright I wouldn't be doing this trip.”
“No Vivian, I meant your hi-viz jacket.”
After a lot more cycling/walking we decided to make camp at the foot of the turn-off for Lake O'Hara, where we found what I thought was a great spot in a clearing with views of snowy mountains. Apparently, however, this wasn't Vivian's idea of a great spot. She seemed very concerned about the risk presented by wildlife, particularly bears, and she revealed that up until now she had been camping on the forecourt of gas stations. She made the best of things here, though, and put up her tent and unpacked her things. I did the same, somewhat faster, and then began to cook us dinner on my stove. We had to use my stove anyway, because Vivian's stove was one of the many things she had thrown away to save weight. Then, as I stirred the pasta in the pot I heard a sudden cry from behind me - “Oh look, here's my food! I didn't lose it after all!”
Today's ride: 64 km (40 miles)
Total: 49,591 km (30,796 miles)
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