Never The End!

I am now at the Vancouver Airport staying at the hotel on the grounds. Tomorrow I head home to Arizona and my beloved husband Bob. While this has been a grand adventure, I have missed him terribly but I am so grateful that he loves me and understands my passion for cycling. 

This is the last blog entry for the Canadian adventure and I do have a few fun statistics to share. My dear friend Margaret and I have ridden 14 of the 20 days of my visit, but I really can't count day one as we only were able to ride for 10 miles due to rain. 

So here are the stats for 13 days of riding.

Total miles ridden - 568

Feet of Elevation climbed  - 33,904 - wow! 

NOTE: That is 37% of all of the elevation I have climbed this so far this year, so that is quite a bit of climbing!

Breaking it down a bit further of the total listed above we rode 6 of those days on our Rocky Mountain tour.

Total miles on the tour - 297

Feet of elevation climbed - 19,485

Special thanks to Hilary and Christopher for our time together in Victoria (and hosting an unbelievable dinner in Victoria) and then riding the Rocky  Mountain tour with us - such a grand adventure!

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Now, bear with me for just a bit as I do a bit of reflection and then close out this blog with the last ride we did yesterday in Penticton.

I think there are many things that make for great adventure. The first certainly being able to share it with friends. That includes Margaret, Hilary, Christopher, Patti, all of the new friends we made on our tour and certainly the "Sisters Of No Mercy" (see blog entry 7/12/16). An added bonus was being able to visit with Trilogy Bike club members in their Canadian homes - Ron & Carol Dunlop, Howard Brown, Murray & Nicole Allen and Terry & Agnes Wiechert. Thank you dear friends for hosting us along the way! Also big thanks to Patti and her cousin Stuart for their hospitality in Penticton. 

I certainly have learned a lot about touring and how to better handle the elements and how a climb really is just a climb, and it is all about putting one foot in front of the other. 

However I think what I most enjoyed about this ride is slowing down and enjoying the touring, our guide Joe said it best, 'there's asphalt all over the world and if you go really fast and keep your head down, that is what you will see. But if you slow down and look up you can see the world."

Thank you for reading my blog and check back in September for my Switzerland adventure with 24 of my Trilogy bike club friends.

Keep smiling!

Gail

"One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things" Henry Miller

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PENTICTON

We rode the KVR on the Penticton extension. We had ridden the KVR in Kelowna so it seemed fitting to end our ride as well. This is a former railroad track, turned trail and is mainly hard packed gravel that was fairly easy to ride with our road bikes. We rode to the wharf on this and then back along the road. 

This was a pretty easy ride, still with a few hills to climb, and a nice way to wind up our adventure. MIles ridden = 22, elevation gain = 1,614. 

Penticton is known for its wineries and vineyards and we saw many that were easily accessible from the trail. 

We saw vineyards and also some hops being grown, it was a very picturesque ride. I particularly liked this sign in a field of hops and the logical conclusion posted. Makes sense to me!

We rode to the lake and met up with Patti, Luke the dog, Hilary and Christopher at the wharf. No place to dock so we just gave them a wave and agreed to meet them back in town. 

After a bite of lunch and showers, we headed out for a bit of wine tasting. I mean really, when you are in wine country you HAVE to check out a winery! Saw this sign along the way, and had to have a photo. 

We spotted this Osprey nest, complete with chicks, along the way to our selected winery. 

We stopped at the Blasted Church Winery for some tasting. Blasted Church is a small Okanagan winery located between Penticton and Okanagan Falls, on the east side of Skaha Lake. This winery is named for a group of pioneers who, with dynamite and a little luck, successfully dismantled an old church back in 1929 and brought it 16 miles back to Okanagan Falls, minus a steeple. 

This ends the great Canadian adventure and I thank you for reading this blog. Remember...

Are We Done Yet?

Today we did our ride around Penticton in gloriously warm and sunny weather. Tonight is our last night together so we are going out for a celebratory dinner.

I am indisposed until tomorrow afternoon and will have my last blog update and final thoughts. Please check back then as I know you want to hear the end of this of the story.

Banff to Penticton - Getting Closer to Home, One More Ride!

We packed up and left Banff and headed to Penticton for a rest day and one more bike ride and a bit of wine tasting. I will write my final entry after this as we still have the one final ride before I head for Vancouver and home. 

While it was a lovely drive today  it was pretty long - about six hours. It was pretty nice to see some of the places we had ridden and to rest the legs while enjoying the beautiful Canadian scenery. 

I love how the highway engineers here go out of their way to protect the wildlife. These are crossovers are built over the highway along the migratory path of the animals to keep them safe and out of traffic as they cross the roads. Nicely done Canada!

One last look at Castle Mountain from a different perspective. 

An engineering marvel, did they use a giant bagel slicer to cut through this section while building the road???

Wine tasting at the Kettle Valley Winery - nice corkscrew Hilary! We purchased some wine here and as an added bonus they allowed us to pick a few fresh peaches growing right in their orchard. 

We wrapped up this day with a lovely dinner, great conversation and a bit of wine with Patti and her cousin Stuart. He lives right in town and Patti met us here on her way to vacation at Mable Lake with the rest of her family. The fresh peaches we picked earlier added to a bit of ice cream made a very tasty dessert. Darn, we ate them all before I could snap a photo!

Thanks for the hospitality Stuart and thank you Patti for giving me the opportunity for one last visit before I head home.

One more entry to go!

Day 6 - The Grande Finale - Riding to Banff

Before I get to the grande finale of this portion of our trip, I want to finish up our visit I Lake Louise. Last night after dinner we walked less than a mile from our hotel, the nearby Deer Lodge, to see the Lake and were very impressed with the view. These photos were taken around 9:00 pm and it was still light out. A bit chilly but the view was breathtaking!

This morning Margaret walked up again at 6:00 a.m. and were treated to a spectacular sunrise, complete with an almost full moon (look carefully at the second photo upper left corner.  

Our ride today was to Banff starting straight out and down the hill from our hotel. We were all amazed at how steep the descent was and could not believe how we all managed to make the climb the day before. And it was so long and so very very steep! Wow, I guess we are ROCK STARS! 

Total miles ridden today 40 miles and mostly downhill with just a few climbs. Since our legs were still talking to us from yesterday we were grateful for the gentle pace of this ride today. Left behind were the Icefields as we entered the forest and the Bow Valley Parkway.  Finally a photo of Christopher riding and this is he chose to pose!

We had a stop at the Storm Mountain Viewpoint for a a quick break. 

This day was all about easy beauty and we took in the sights on this very quiet road and saw more wildlife than cars. We passed by Castle Junction - these mountains really do look like a castle perched high on a mountain top.

We had our last rest stop at the Muleshoe parkway where we all met for final goodbyes before riding the last few miles into Banff. However, we did see a few male Big Horn sheep, one of them appeared to to be having a conversation with a bald eagle!

As we rode into town we passed by the Vermillion Lakes with Mt Rundle in the distance.  This distinctive mountain is ever present in the town of Banff.

After doing laundry, having a rest and some food we went for a stroll about town and walked down a lovely trail on the edge of town to the Bow River that ended at the Bow Falls. 

No bears today, but we did see this sign in a store window on our way back to our hotel that puts "staying away" from the bears in perspective. 

Our overall experience with Rocky Mountain Bicycle Tours this week  has been outstanding. Good food, nice accommodations and experienced guides and cyclists. The route we took through the Rockies is highly is recommended to all either on a bike, motorcycle or car. We were lucky with the weather because we only had one rainy day.  If you want the best weather one should probably plan to come here in August. The locals say the weather in the Rocky Mountains is 11 months of winter and then there is August.

WHAT'S NEXT?????

Tomorrow we head to Penticton and will meet up with Patti, do some wine tasting and perhaps some cycling. Stay tuned!

Day 5 - High Passes and the Bluest Lakes

I was so impressed by yesterday's ride that I just didn't think it could get any better. However, it did today. This was one tough day, but really amazing. Total miles ridden 110k or 68.18 miles and 5,305 total feet ascended. There was a lot of climbing involved today as you can see by the profile. Interestingly we all agreed that the high elevation did not seem to impact us. 

The day started out perfectly with sunny blue skies with just the right amount of puffy white clouds. We were able to clearly see all of the mountain tops - a virtual perfect way to start the day. 

Our first stop was at Lower Waterfowl Lake where Marg and I had our photo taken and then all our riders gathered for a group photo 

Left to right - Ian and Sharon (England)' Doug and Linda (Ohio), Nancy (Oregon), Gail (Arizona), Christopher and Hilary (VIctoria), Margaret (Victoria), Theresa (Oregon), Joe (tour guide from Banff), In Front - Etienne (Tour Leader, St. Agathe, Quebec)

From there we climbed Bow Summit to Payto Lake. Bow summit is the highest crossing point in Banff National Park (6943 feet). Payto lake is one of the bluest lakes I have ever seen - absolutely stunning!  It almost does not look real it is so beautiful. This is runoff from the glacier. 

AT THE SUMMIT - this sign is kinda shot, but we had to get the obligatory summit photo. 

We then began descending and Margaret snapped this great photo of yet another bear. Probably a juvenile, but we certainly did not want to get in his way. Our friends Doug and Linda came across him before we did as he was crossing the road. They were within three feet of him and Doug actually yelled out "BEAR" startling the little guy away. Lucky for all as a close encounter does not always turn out well.

Our lunch stop was overlooking Bow lake and Etienne out did himself once again by making a wonderful Ceaser salad and pizza that he warmed on the traveling BBQ. 

From Bow Lake we had an incredible 15 miles or so of a fantastic down hill run. It was very welcome after all the climbing to the summit. 

We entered Lake Louise village and stopped for a quick coffee and from there we could either head to our hotel or take the 28 km run UP to Moraine Lake and the Valley of Ten Peaks, just an added bonus to our day

Margaret and I chose to do the extra miles and rode with Doug and LInda (they are riding a tandem) up to the lake keeping a wary eye on the traffic coming and going. This road was very narrow and steep with lots of twisties but well managed by the park service who only let cars in a few at a time. We had a long climb of 8-11% grades that seem to go on forever. Actually it wa 9 km straight up and two down right into the parking lot. Good to be on bikes that allow you to bypass all the parking lot traffic. 

WHOOPS, AND DOUG THOUGHT HE WAS ON THE "NO CLIMBING" TOUR. 

The road back down was lots of fun as all those climbs we had done getting there were now our downhill playground and we could actually go faster than the cars. My max speed was 40 mph!

After that it was a climb up to our hotel that while short, almost did me in. Lots of traffic and 10-11% grades. If it hadn't been for Ian encouraging me up that hill I might have  just quit and walked the rest of the way. What a rush and sense of accomplishment to have completed this ride. I have to admit it was one of the toughest rides I have ever done.

Tomorrow is our last day and we ride to Banff, however Margaret and I plan to get up early and watch the sunrise at Lake Louise. 

Day 4 - Across Sumwapta Pass to the Columbia Icefields

This is a day late because we did not have any Internet service. But the ride was so memorable I wanted to make sure I got this out. 

Today's forecast called for cold temps and rain, there was even a possibility of snow. Gratefully we did not have any rain or snow, the temps while cold, did not go as low as predicted. That was a plus for the day. This was a challenging ride with some huge climbs right in the middle ascending to the highest elevation of 6675 feet at the Columbia Icefields. Total miles ridden 100k/62 miles and 3500 total feet ascended.

It was nice to start the day with a lovely warm-up ride of about 40k/25 miles along the Head waters of the Athabasca River. Temps were n the low 50's so we were dressed in layers. Just like every day on this tour, the scenery got better with every mile. It is almost jaw dropping to see more and more majestic mountains appear as we rounded each bend. We saw the river, snow capped mountains, some with glaciers, and of course waterfalls. 

We rode on HWY 93 and there was plenty of shoulder and big bike lanes on the road. The motorists gave us plenty of room and since we left around 8:15 a.m. there really wasn't much traffic at all for this morning, making it a very enjoyable ride. We stopped for photos along the way. Here are just a few.

This is the Athabasca Glacier and is one of the highest peak in Alberta. 

Not only is this a good road for bicyclists but there are lots of motorcyclists enjoying the sights as well.  I met this fellow at the Sumwapta view point and he was riding with a group of friends from Israel. They were all very interested in our bicycle ride and I was able to get this quick photo. 

After our short break we began the big climb of the day. As you can see from the profile, it was quite a steep ascent and we hit 8-12 degrees in the climb, once again it was just slow but steady up and then up quite a bit more to the Icefields. We warmed up quickly and shed a layer or two on the ascent. 

We had been pretty lucky most of the day with the wind, but as we rode alongside the Icefields we had a wicked side wind blasting us. It reminded me of a particularly windy Tour de Palm Springs ride, only a LOT colder! It took a great deal of effort and leaning into the wind to keep the bikes upright. At the summit the road turned and we now had a lovely tail wind and we stopped to layer up again before descending.

The descent was very fast and steep and The temps were around 48 degrees and I hit speeds up to 40 mph, that was cold AND speedy, thank goodness for all those layers. That, the wind and the traffic kept me very alert and attentive to the road. We all safely arrived at our lunch stop and Etienne, our tour leader, had a BBQ going and was serving chicken kabobs, salad, homemade bruschetta and lots of other goodies including hot chocolate.

We still had more descent coming up and it looked like rain ahead so I traded my toe covers for rain booties and wow, did they keep my feet warm and happy!

On the way down the hill we stopped quickly at "Weeping Wall" and a bit further on we were lucky to spot a black bear and got a quick photo. 

The rest of our ride took us to our hotel, the only place around for MILES! We had to wait a bit for our rooms so we all relaxed with beer provided by both Christopher and Susan from our group. 

Tomorrow we ride to Lake Louise - praying for sunshine!