Day 14

41.8 miles and climbed 1000ft

This sign in Fernie pretty much sums it up for Erin (and replace coffee with tea and that is Mike).

This is Mike writing again.  Erin and I set an alarm this morning so we could go to 9:00am daily Mass in Fernie. The Catholic Church is just a few blocks down the road from our B&B (as are two other churches). As I type this, I'm wondering: 9:00am is kind of a late daily Mass time, isn't it?

Anyway, daily Mass is short as usual, and Erin and I make it back to our B&B for our 9:30am breakfast time. There we enjoy eggs Benedict, fresh fruit, juice, coffee and tea. Yum!  Patrick, one of the B&B owners, has also kindly offered to drive us up near the ski lodge in Fernie so we can see an old growth forest of cottonwood and cedar trees up to 800 years old -- amazing!

Patrick truly went out out his way to show us the forest as we would not have been able to climb the steep gravel roads on our particular bikes. During the winter, these roads are actually closed with the only way up to the ski lodge being a Snowcat (seen below).

I also want to have my shifting cables on my bike checked before we leave Fernie. During the ride in to Fernie yesterday, my chain began to slip on the rear cassette every once in a while when I got out of the saddle and pushed harder than normal on the pedals. So, I'd like to nip that problem in the bud before it becomes worse and there's no place better than Fernie to get this done -- I've never seen so many mountain bikers all around and for a town of less than five thousand people, it supports no less than three bike shops. Very cool. 

During the hour we have to kill while the mechanic takes a look at my bike, Erin and I walk Fernie's historic downtown, get a tasty bite to eat, and Erin unexpectedly discovers a candy shop selling her favorite bonbon candies. She's quite happy below. 

Anyway, we finally roll out of Fernie around 2pm. We have some climbing to do, but thankfully, we have less miles to do than typical (about 40) to get to Coleman. Along the way, we pass thru a coal mining town called Sparwood where we encounter the world's largest truck, the Titan 33-19. It is enormous (see Erin by the wheels).

We eventually pass thru the Crowsnest along the highway and get to Coleman, our final destination for the day. Dinner is at a plain small town diner, but we clear our heaping plates and then walk across the street to check out the local pub at the Grand Union Hotel. That might be a bit of a misnomer, but we enjoy listening to Tres Hombres while Erin takes her tomato juice cravings to another level, mixing tomato juice with a beer (which seems to be a fairly popular concoction up here in Canada).

We were pretty much the audience at Grand Union.

For a finale, Erin and I hit the hot tub back at our B&B.

 

Day 12: Why did I even bother with deodorant?

57.5 miles in 99 degree heat (seriously Canada?!)

We woke up and had an amazing breakfast. Frittatas made extra special for the hungry bikers, fruit and yogurt parfaits, and bagels with homemade jam.  Our hosts gave us lots of biking advice, short cuts to take and most importantly routes to avoid hills. Off we went, out into the super hot day.  We took plenty of breaks and I was much more aware of drinking liquids and applying sunscreen today. Lodging once again was proving to be difficult so we decided that we would camp most likely. 

We stopped for lunch in Schoomachuck. Seriously quite the name. However, their convenience store was quite barren. I think it was only convenient if you wanted gas, but we did find a pizza pita and decided to split it and eat some snacks we were carrying. (Last night at the grocery store Mike bought a 6 pack of Coke bottles because it was cheaper than just buying two coke bottles). So we were hauling those in the heat today. So at our little break Mike takes the one out of the tent to drink, but then decides the ones in my pannier are colder, so he gets that one out to drink, and replaces the coke taken from his load and puts it back in my bag. I see how this works, lighten your own load...

The odometer at the bottom read 300 miles!  Since the start of this tour, not counting the biking around Jasper pre tour.

We got back on the bikes when the heat in the shade became too unbearable. I think the words, "I'm hot, I just need to get biking" came out of my mouth. With the breeze from the bike it wasn't too bad out, and the occasional clouds providing shade were amazing. 

 

The scenery has changed quite a bit. Hardly any snow capped mountains in sight and the mountains aren't as close. We are in Canadian Ranchland now. 

At one point a very slight drizzle came down on us. They were like little rain drops from heaven. It felt so good. 

We eventually made it to a little pub in Wasa where we stopped for lunch part 2. We could camp here, book at their hotel, or continue on to Fort Steele where we hoped to end the night. We decided to press on.  It was still hot, and uphill, but we made it to the campground.  We got a site, got icecream, and went to set up camp before jumping in the pool. 

We made sure the campground tonight had showers. After biking in the heat they were needed!  It seems so crazy that just a few days ago we were cold up in the mountains and spent days biking without ever taking off our long sleeves. 

After showering we went to play on the playground. Bad idea. We were on this one spin around thing and Mike fell off first, and then me, but I fell super awkwardly and banged my knee really hard just adding to my bruising from yesterday. 

The tent was set up, with the rain fly off. It was only suppose to cool down to 73 at night!  And then it started raining, so we put the rain fly on, but that made inside the tent feel like a sauna, so we chanced it and took it off. Falling asleep was quite uncomfortable with the heat and lack of breeze. It may have been okay with one person in the tent, but this is our happy honeymoon adventure and the mosquitoes were so bad outside the tent that you had to seek refuge inside. We both finally fell asleep, and slept pretty well. It ended up cooling off enough that we both were inside our sleeping bags on the morning rather than on top like at night. 

A little evening snack. I have fallen in love with tomatoe juice up here. This is probably about my 6th can since arriving in Canada.

Day 11

31.2 miles

We woke up and went down for a delicious homemade breakfast at our motel/ B&B. It was seriously such a good breakfast!  If you are ever in Radium Hot Springs, we highly recommend the Piccadilly Motel!  Then upstairs to finish packing, book a place for the next time and to hit the road.  Lodging proved to be a little difficult but we managed to secure a bed and breakfast about 30 miles away (although it was hard to discover because our maps had it listed under an old name). We had hoped to go further, but it was not going to be an option lodging wise. 

So we set out. I didn't even make it out of the parking lot before I crashed. The parking lot was loose gravel, I didn't realize my shoe was clipped in and down I went, loaded bike on top of me. After a few tears I got up, went back inside to wash up and hit the road again.  I was pretty sore for the next few days from the fall, and have some pretty spectacular bruises and cuts on my calf that look like a bear clawed me.  But at least it was a crash at zero mph. 

So finally on the road. We arrived at our first town about 9 miles away and happened upon a farmers market that was sort of a country fair. There was a band playing, we got some quinoa salad, a brownie and fresh squeezed lemonade and sat down to enjoy. It was pretty neat. Then we continued toward town and found a brewery that we had to try.  

Tasting flight at Arrowhead Brewing Co. in Inveremere. 

Then back on the bikes. Our directions told us to take the long way around the lake rather than the highway. In hindsight the highway probably would have been better. The highway would have more traffic, but we heard it is a popular cycle route so it would have been fine.  The road we took was nice however,  more rural and more bumpy, but nice. Our route also involved us backtracking about 2 miles to get to the B&B. We arrived though and quickly were informed that we had been upgraded to the Honeymoon Suite!  

They didn't even know it was our honeymoon!

We walked up the hill to this amazing restaurant called Scratch, were everything is made from scratch. We got take-away since they were closing and found a picnic table in the shade to enjoy our meal. 

I got a chocolate ice tea 😊 to go as well. The 😊 is code for the kahula shot in it. 

Then to the grocery store to buy some stronger sunscreen so I no longer look like a lobster. We also picked up some Canadian wine. We really like the Copper Valley winery, and so we headed home with some to enjoy it. 

Day 13: half way there

62.2 miles

We woke up at what had to be the sleepest campground ever.  We woke up around 8am and there was not a peep. Even when we left around 10am the campground was still pretty quiet and just starting to stir. We got a B&B booked in Fernie (which is our halfway point, and the last town on our first section of maps). 

We got rolling and worked up a sweat pretty fast with our first climb. I decided to wear long sleeves today to prevent further sunburn. I didn't get too much worse the day before but better safe than sorry. I ended up wearing one of Mike's semi dirty long sleeve shirts because the one I had was thicker. Nothing says love like wearing your husband's dirty clothes. The morning was quite lovely. The sky was overcast, there were little raindrops, a slight breeze and it was still cool in the morning. Plus we were on a pretty quiet country road. It was a really lovely stretch. I even saw another elk. Mike didn't though. It was seriously right next to the road again!

We arrived in Jaffrey and got lunch at a little cafe. The food was very good and we connected to the Internet which we normally don't do until the evening. However, Mike realized quickly that our B&B canceled on us. So back to the drawing board for us. We were a little taken aback that they had overbooked but it ended up being for the better. We found another B&B and booked that.  Then finally after a much longer lunch break than we had expected, we hit the road again. We had a choice to take the route that was recommended which was country roads but 5 miles longer or stay on the main highway that we have been on coming into town. I really didn't enjoy the traffic on the highway so we opted for the longer route. The rolling hills had a lot less traffic along with a bunch of dirt bike trails and an intersection with The Great Divide mountain biking trail. Our road finally came to a T where we connected with a different road to take us back to the main highway. I was sure happy that there was an outhouse located there.😉. We began hearing thunder and seeing a storm brewing off to our left. We peddled quickly knowing that our next town wasn't too far off.  We arrived at the highway that would take us into the town of Elko and made a fortunate turn away from the storm, but it was chasing us. Lucky for us Elko is located on top of a huge hill. Jk. The winds picked up a light rain started, traffic was heavy and we were peddling as fast as we could up that hill. We finally arrived at a gas station, got off our bikes, stowed them away under the awning just as the sky let loose. The workers in the convenient store were absolutely wonderful. They let us hang out in the store for about 30 minutes while the storm passed and we enjoyed some cold beverages. They even filled up our water bottles for us.  Once the storm passed we got back on the road down to Fernie. 19 miles to go, but through a tunnel. The road was busy to say the least, but we got to enjoy a downhill ride. 

Gotta love the semi looming in the background. 

The tunnel was super short which I appreciated and the car following us saw us going in the tunnel which helped. Pretty quickly the sun came out and we got a gorgeous rainbow over the river next to the road. 

We rode into Fernie and found our lodging at the Old Nurse's Residence B&B. I think Mike said it best when he said B&Bs are the way to go. The hospitality we received was absolutely spectacular. The home was filled with antiques that I got a quick tour of. We quickly showered up and walked down to one of our hosts favorite spots called The Curry Bowl. The menu looked so amazing it was hard to choose. We sat upstairs on their patio and had a beautiful view while dining. 

Mike enjoyed some local beers as well. We hoped to visit the brewery in Fernie but it didn't work out. But one of their beer cans has a bike on it!

We then walked around downtown before heading back for a good nights rest.

Biking is huge in Fernie, as are most other outdoor activities. We would definitely love to visit here again!

The next morning was amazing our house went out of their way to show us some of the highlights of the town. More on that tomorrow!

Day 10: Hot Springs

18.2 miles

We had a shorter day today due to having to go further than expected yesterday because of lodging. 

Mike wants to note how peacefully I sleep with the rain fly on.

We went to gather our food out of the bear storage area and hit the road. We saw a couple more deer as we left the campground. I am quite glad that was the only wildlife we saw nearby. 

We also had to go up our last huge climb on map 1 today, but the reward was wonderful: hot springs!

I had been talking about these hot springs for days now, and they were finally here!

The climb was steep, 7-8% grade for many miles. We got a nice view at the top.  One other tourist was very impressed by us and took photos of us climbing. We both realized signs you never want to see while biking say 'passing lanes ahead'. Passing lanes mean big long climbs. The worst was over and we got to the pass, but our passing lanes had not yet disappeared. I was not fooled by the tourist telling us the climb was over. Seriously, never tell someone the climb is over when it isn't. We saw another bear on the top of the mountain right next to the cement barrier on the side of the road. Then finally, the magical sign...passing lanes ending in 2km!  We made it over our last mountain on this set of maps! We whizzed down the mountain (this side was much steeper and longer than the side we came up) and saw another bear.  We climbed over 2000ft and descended 3500ft. 

Black bear, black bear, what do you see?  I see two bikers looking at me. 

Then to the hot springs. They were so relaxing.  There was a hot pool and a cool pool that we switched between.  Once we had our fill we finished our descent into town.  It was so weird to be leaving the National parks after being in them for so many days, but our wallets sure were happy.  We grabbed some lunch, and my first ice cream of the trip. It really hadn't been warm enough up in the mountains to crave it. I was happy though. It was well earned!

We checked in to our motel. Which was really a B&B motel mix.  It was awesome. I took a nap, while Mike looked into our next destination. We walked around town a bit, and grabbed some dinner were we could watch USA beat China in the World Cup match.

On our walk we spotted a herd of bighorn sheep in town.  They were panting hard. It was quite hot out. 

 I think I was a bit dehydrated from the climb, heat, and hot springs, so I downed lots of liquids.  We stopped by a grocery store to replenish our supply of snacks and off to bed. 

Day 9: This is why we carried camping gear

68 miles

Conversation from last night:

Mike: What time should I set the alarm for?

Me: There would be no alarms in my ideal honeymoon.

Mike: I think most honeymoons have some alarm wake ups for spa treatments and such.

Me: Yeh, but our alarm wake up is to bike 50+ miles not for a spa. 

Needless to say we did wake up and get rolling for our journey. We knew we would be camping tonight because the place we had hoped to stay was all booked up. But thankfully the nearest campground was opening for the season today. Good timing!

So we left Lake Louise and got on the Bow Valley Parkway (which they advertise as being nearly impossible to not see wildlife on it). We managed to see nothing, but we did take some fun photos.

With my bear claws ready to act big if I see a black bear.  

Mike enjoying the lack of traffic on the road. 

We stopped for lunch at a convenience store, which had pretty good sandwiches.  And a super cool gas pump. 

Then back on the road to face our mountain for the day.  It was long and traffic picked up since we were no longer on the Bow Valley Parkway. We made it and celebrated with a stop at the continental divide. 

We found this pretty cool and were surprised by how few other travelers stopped here. We hoped to get a photo together, but most people who stopped simply used it as a bathroom break and didn't come near the sign. Here we left Banff National Park and crossed into Kootenay National Park, as well it marked us leaving Alberta and crossing to British Columbia. We also read a little about the pass we were headed toward. 

From there we made it to Vermillion crossing, were we had hoped to stay, but now planned on eating in their restaurant before heading on to our campground. My Achilles was still hurting pretty bad, so I was lagging behind Mike most of the day. I stopped to lower my bike seat and ice in the Kootenay River. Both of which helped. 

Glacier water fixes everything.

Then onward to dinner.  We arrived to find that the restaurant is only open on the weekends, so we had to make dinner selections from their convenience store. Luckily they had one sandwich left. 

Yummy dinner for hungry bikers.

We purchased our food and sat outside to eat. There we met three other women biking heading in the opposite direction who chatted with us for a bit, gave us some advice and offered us a place to stay once we arrive in Missoula ( they are from Missoula). I think they were excited to see another woman out there biking.  We quickly ran in to use the bathrooms and fill up water bottles before they closed at 6pm and then it was back on the road for 23 more miles until our campground. It was a good thing we arrived when we did or we would have had a granola bar dinner. 

Biking to the campground was beautiful. There was less traffic as it got later but plenty of light because it doesn't get dark till 11pm. At one point I felt like we were in Jurassic Park. There were electric fences on both sides of us to prevent wildlife deaths. 

We saw a deer on the other side of the fence but that was it. Frankly, I was okay not seeing anything else as I was laying my head outdoors tonight. 

We finally arrived at McLeod Meadows, and set up camp. It was a nice day of riding, but we were both glad to be off the saddle. 

I made sure he out the rain fly on for heat!  Although we did end up opening it a bit to get a breeze as we slept. Once we got camp set up we walked to the river to ice again, came back and built a fire. 

Nothing says honeymoon quite like no hot meals, no showers, biking 68 miles to camp😉. (We did take a baby wipe shower). Today was a far cry from the spa treatment he referenced last night, but it was a great day. I think Mike realizes how lucky he is to have found a wife who finds this okay for a honeymoon adventure. Addendum from Mike:  I think Erin realizes how lucky she is to have found a husband that takes her to the most beautiful places on the planet. :)

Day 8: Lake Agnes Tea House

This is Mike at the helm again. Erin and I decided this morning to stay an extra day at Lake Louise. Erin's left Achille's started bothering her yesterday and my right knee has been so-so. Thus, taking some time off the bike seemed wise. The Paradise Bungalows where we stayed last night (seen above with Erin) also had a different cabin available for us, so it was an even easier decision. Plus, we knew we wanted to start the day with a hike to one of the famous tea houses in the mountains overlooking Lake Louise (that are only accessible by foot or horseback). Not having to bike after that seemed appealing as well. 

Knowing that we wanted to take today a bit easy, we opted to hike to the Lake Agnes Tea House which seemed seemed a reasonable 3.7km away (plus 1 km uphill from our cabin to get to the trailhead). Missing from the route description, however, was the vertical climb of roughly 1000ft to get to the Tea House (altho Erin just read a moment ago that the Lake Agnes Tea House is the highest tea house in all of Canada, so there you go). Thus, our hike was more challenging than anticipated, but there were occasional vistas of Lake Louise along the way which definitely inspired. 

The reward for our climb was an amazing tea house serving a small array of homemade foods and 75 varieties of loose leaf tea. Seventy-five! Plus, the tea house was set next to a lake (where the servers would go to fetch the water to boil for the tea as seen in the below picture) with a cascading waterfall nearby. It was pretty much perfect. 

Erin is seated at the far right. 

The tougher than expected hike did take its toll on one young boy who unfortunately cut his leg along the way and had to be airlifted out via helicopter while we were there. I am hoping that he only needed some stitches and was more scared by the sight of his blood than anything.

Did I mention how high we were? There was snow nearby. I got Erin to take the next photo by promising her that the snowball I threw in her direction would not hit her. :)

Finally, back at the start of our hike (near the fancy Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise), we took a couple of pictures of the beautiful flowers on the grounds.  The yellow and orange ones are Icelandic poppies while I don't know what the purple ones are. 

Oh, and last but not least, I biked down from our mountain abode post-hike to visit the local bike shop in Lake Louise. The bearings in my left pedal had become problematic shortly after we left Jasper, and while I *think* the pedal would have held up for the duration of the trip, I thought it best not to chance it. It seems like this was a good decision as the bike mechanic immediately diagnosed the pedal as irrepairable. Fortunately, the shop carried the exact same kind of pedals on my bike (which allow one to clip in with bike shoes on one side but have a platform pedal on the other side which allows one to ride with sneakers), and they weren't too expensive to replace.  Thus, the Surly is rolling smoothly once again!

Day 7 (day 3 of biking) Bear Crossing

52.1 miles covered today. 

We prepared to hit the road early today, but 10 am is as close to early as we got. We got some breakfast and hit the road knowing our first 23 miles would be uphill covering 2 big climbs. I even found this new boyfriend outside the restaurant. Jk. Scruffy Mike is way better 😘. 

The first climb was not terrible. The best part about going up is the beautiful views.

 So I guess it's all worth it in the end. The second climb was a little steeper and I would say longer although Mike disagrees that it was longer.  We made it up though. We were literally on top of a mountain. It is so cool looking around and seeing peaks that used to be way high up in the sky and are now right next to you.

Note how the peaks are much closer than the last photo. 

Finishing the last climb of the day... Or so I thought.

We basically regained all the elevation we came flying down yesterday. 

The next half hour was amazing. It was a downhill ride into Bow Lake where we would have lunch. My Achilles started bothering me so Mike was some distance away from me. Pretty close to the lake there was a large field in which I spotted a large brown rock, or so I thought until the rock started moving. It was a grizzly. I tried yelling for Mike since it was clear he didn't see it, I tried ringing my bell. He couldn't hear me with the wind as he was cruising downhill. So I peddled my little legs super fast to catch up to him and told him. Since the bear was a ways off the road we reversed course so he could see the bear. By that time tons of cars had stopped, but I was the first person to spot it.  Seeing the bear was pretty cool, mostly because he was far away 😉. 

Then we road down to Bow Lake which is absolutely stunning. We had hoped to spend a night at their lodge but they were booked up. Lunch was delicious, and I think we would say so if we hadn't just biked 24 miles up a mountain. I had bison chili and a delicious sandwich.

I jumped so high I touched a mountain top!

Then we went for a walk near, and in Mike's case, in the lake. It really was beautiful. We were headed on to Lake Louise which everyone says is beautiful, but it's hard to imagine a place more beautiful than this. 

Mike skipping rocks. 

We knew the next half of our journey would be mostly downhill which I was especially excited about as my Achilles was aching. We were cruising down this big hill going about 20 mph with fresh pavement visible ahead!  The roads have been pretty good, but today was quite bumpy. I think we had both gotten used to the bumps on our butts until the fresh pavement.  While flying down the hill something black catches my eye. Yup, that's a black bear, yup it's really close to the road, now it's looking at me. I definitely jumped out of my saddle a bit, and it's good to know my bear instinct kicked in.  I thought, black bear act big. I had my hand claw and roar ready to go, but seeing as I was flying by him I didn't need it.  So once again I peddled fast to catch up to Miguel and started yelling at him.  Nope, he missed that bear too.  I don't know what he was looking at. It was so close to the road. Apparently his bear spotting abilities are similar to his chasing dog spotting abilities...aka not good.  We didn't go back to see that bear though because it was uphill and he was close to the road. No one wants to encounter a bear that close when going 5 mph!  This then sparked a conversation about what should one do if you do see a bear that close while going uphill. Hopefully that doesn't happen though. 

We got to enjoy the fresh pavement all the way to Lake Louise basically. It was really nice and made for faster travel!  We got rained on a bit today, but we had our rain coats on, and the showers didn't last long. It didn't take too long to dry out either while zooming down the mountainside. 

We offically finished biking the Icefields Parkway today! This meant we had to get off our nice road though. We got onto highway 1 for a short distance, which really felt like an interstate. And then we exited for Lake Louise. No one told me this was up a mountain.  The lake itself is off the route provided on the Adventure Cylcing maps so we had no idea.  However, someone somewhere along the way could have mentioned that when they asked where we were headed. Oh yeh that's a serious climb to the lake. Nope.  Anyway. We made it after taking a few breaks and arrived at our lodging at Paradise Bungalows. Mike does an excellent job of picking out places to stay on our honeymoon (rated no. 1 place to stay in the area). Our cabin was amazing. Quaint on the outside and gorgeous on the inside. Complimentary tea (which Mike loved), granola bars which we devoured, and oatmeal for breakfast. I may move in. 

And did I mention the claw foot tub?!

We got settled.  I iced my Achilles, and Mike iced his knee.  We got cleaned up and walked to Lake Louise (about a mile uphill). The lake was beautiful with the Victoria Glacier behind it.

We had dinner up there (you can tell we are biking again as we both devoured our huge plates of food) and headed back to our home for the night.

The privacy bear to hang outside your cabin.