August 30, 2024
Day 12: From the wilderness to wilderness.
Last night after we left the community hall our goal was to ride about 16 km to the first of a series of National campgrounds all along the road. As we got closer I could see smoke in the distance of an active fire not that far away. It was concerning, not in the immediate but for sleeping well. It was a difficult stretch of riding because I was exhausted.
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When we finally arrived there was a sign out front saying it was closed and there were forest fire personnel there in trucks. We asked them for the scoop and they said the fire wasn’t a safety concern and the other campgrounds were open. That was a relief.
Our campground was only another 2 km away. We noticed before going to bed that it was getting cold fast. I wore extra clothes to bed and that helped although I threw on my coat later in the night.
Waking up in the morning it was really cold. We prepared oatmeal and got organized while dawning our puffy coats, toques and gloves. It felt like 0 C to me and there was a biting wind.
We started riding about 7:45 and it was downright cold. My legs felt like bricks and my toes and fingertips were freezing. I could not keep up to Peter because I was trying to roll my toes, unsuccessfully I might add. The first 45 minutes was very unpleasant. Then the sun started to peak over the mountains occasionally and we could catch a bit of warmth. At about an hour I peeled layers but my feet and hands were still a struggle.
Today was the first day where I felt some self doubt I wasn’t feeling incredibly upbeat being so cold and my mind wandered to how many times we were going to experience this again. Doing hard things challenges you mentally more than physically at times. And I was struggling.
We were rinding on pavement for a lot more of the day today. Likely 75% of the total distance was pavement. That does help with speed but mentally for me I struggle because it just seems to go on forever with no end in sight. We stopped fairly regularly for little breaks because we were climbing from the camp for a couple of hours.
When we reached the top the descent was comfortably warm enough thank goodness. It really is better climbing in the cold because the effort helps warm you up. On downhill the wind is nasty.
We pulled off the road about 11:30 and took a bit longer for lunch before continuing to grind out distance on the road. As roads go it was great. It was a scenic byway so very little traffic and everyone gave us wide berths when passing.
As the afternoon progressed it actually got hot. We finally got off the pavement and hit some gravel roads and our water needed resupply so we took a short detour towards a campground and tourist stop at the ghost town.
The ghost town was interesting as it gave you a sense of what made for a town over 100 years ago. There was a church, hotel, schoolhouse, bar etc. we went into the building that were open. It wasn’t all done up. Mostly other was in a state that it was left, frozen in time and partly deteriorating but you could still envision what it was like. After the tour we filled our bottles at the visitor centre and downed a cold pop.
Earlier in the day Peter called a place with cabins that was about our desired distance. They were full so we had to press on, and on, and on. They said we could try camping anywhere but mostly there were just small sections of dead grass and sage brush peppered with cow landmines. It wasn’t appealing.
We ended up setting our goal to get to an informal campground. It was tiring plugging the last 20 km but we finally arrived at 7. We navigated our way across a creek before discovering the proper access. It is basically a dead grassy field with a creek nearby. Good enough!
We quickly made dinner. I commented that it felt like we were cowboys because we jumped off our bikes in the middle of nowhere and had rice and beans. We cleaned dishes and stashed the food far away. This was a long day and we were both exhausted.
Highlights:
-ghost town was unique
-we saw our second coyote
-seeing a herd of deer grazing
-reaching camp finally
Distance - 1288 elevation gain / 128.6 km
Today's ride: 129 km (80 miles)
Total: 1,362 km (846 miles)
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I finally caught up and have read all the blog entries. What an Adventure! Keep that Strong Mindset!
1 month ago
1 month ago