This was our last “easy” day before we start to lengthen our rides.
We started early hoping to take in some sights en-route; our first stop half way up the 7km 1000ft climb up kicking Horse pass was to take a look at the spiral railway tunnels built in the 19th Century. The tunnels spiral inside a mountain and the trains are so long that you can see them going in and coming out at a different altitude. Luckily a train came along just at the right time. The engineering involved is mindboggling; they had to tunnel from two different sites in a spiral and at an incline without the use of modern kit. They lost a man a week through accidents, particularly death through premature detonation of nitro glycerine.
As we pulled away from the railway tunnels I was looking at the road just ahead and then I looked up and about 6ft from me sitting eating dandy lions on the verge was a Black Bear Cub. My first thought was to stop and take a photo quickly followed by “where is Mother Bear?” I decided to go a few feet and then stopped and took a few photos, luckily no sign of Mother Bear, it just sat about chewing greens seeming not to give dam about the two lane motorway just 10 feet from its nose.Shortly after the summit to Kicking Horse Pass we passed into our second Province, Alberta. The plan was to turn off the highway and onto the old road, which is now an unofficial path to Lake Louise cutting out a stiff 10km climb but unfortunately the wardens turned us back after a couple of miles, there were 3 or 4 Grizzly Bears and cubs between us and our destination. Frankly I was quite happy to turn around as Grizzlies are fast runners!
We cycled on into Lake Louise where I managed to get hold of Zoe on the phone and grab some sports drink tablets and then opting out of the climb to see Lake Louise headed off towards Banff.
The Old 1A road was a much quieter road than the highway and tree lined which gave for some impressive views. The road was a nice ride with some rolling hills and long descents as we came down about 1000ft into Banff.
As we cycled along we just happened across a Stag Elk grazing on the side of the road. We stood for a few minutes and it just did what it had to and wandered off. It had huge felt lined antlers which could have done some damage if angered so we kept our distance.The rest of the ride was pleasant enough and we rolled into Banff at about 1.30pm, bought some lunch and had a beer. The bad news was that after the beer we discovered we had a stiff 3km climb up to the camp site; early beer is not to be recommended!
Tonight was my cooking duty, I am dinner chef and tonight we had Tuna and Sweet corn Fritters, or as they became known Splatters, despite all our predictions they actually went down well and we have some satisfied campers this evening.
Tomorrow is our longest ride so far, 89 miles, but thankfully most of it is downhill or relatively flat as we head out of the Rockies and towards Calgary. My group do breakfast in the morning and then I am sweep duty so I have to stay at the back and check everyone is OK so it might be long day in the saddle; let’s hope for a tail wind!
Onwards and Upwards!!
No comments:
Post a Comment