July 2, 2009

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Day 32. Thursday.
What a ride! 370Km through the mountains. This may be heaven on earth.
After scarfing down a couple slices of poppy seed loaf I pick up at the store last night I spent some time cleaning up the bike. It's amazing how dirty it gets in 10 minutes of rain. Well I suppose a car does too. Today I knew what to expect so despite the 25 degree forecast I zipped the lining back in my jacket, put on the full face and insulated gloves. I never fully understood chaps but now I understand why people wear them.
Off I went on Hwy 1 for the first leg of the trip through Yoho National Park to Golden, BC. This is a nice ride in itself. I could stop and take pictures at every turn. It's so beautiful. At least to those of us who don't have mountains where we live. I suppose if you grew up here you don't think about it.
I stopped along side a river where you can go white water rafting. The rafters were just loading up and heading up stream in the bus and trucks. There was another guy on a bike stopped there for some pictures. He was on his way back to Edmonton from the coast. He said the warm weather was late coming here too and that is why there is so much snow left in the mountains. A little further along there was a rest area at the bottom of a valley so I pulled in to look at the water. The rivers running through the mountains is a teal color and so transparent. It looks so cold and clean.
Pushing on I came to Golden where I stopped for gas. There were several bikes at the pancake house. I missed the turn onto Hwy 95 and found myself headed for Glacier National Park. Not today I thought so I turned around and found 95 South to Radium where the hot spring are. Despite being between two mountain ridges this was the least exciting stretch. It's fairly flat and quite straight for a road in the mountains. Once I reached Radium I gassed up again and went in the candy store. The owner and I got talking about the wildlife and I told him about the mountain goats I saw yesterday. He said I was very lucky because they rarely come down out of the high hills. He figured they were looking for salt. They lick the ditches along the roads picking up the winters road salt that has not already washed away. Radium has a very nice setting amongst the mountains. Pretty.
Once the shop owner found out where I was headed next he said "you won't regret that drive" and he was right. Highway 93 through Kootenay National Park was the nicest, most picturesque portion of the ride. There is however many miles of dead trees all along the mountains edge. I don't think it was from fire because the tiny branches are still attached. Perhaps a drought several years ago. I say several because the bark is mostly gone too. Just a guess though. At one point I passed a deer on the side of the road. It did'nt care one bit that cars, motorcycles and trucks were passing less than 10 feet from it's head but once I turned around and slowly approached on the opposite shoulder then it took note. I got within about 50 feet and stopped. It watched me very closely and although I did'nt move after what must have been a minute to a minute and a half off it went into the woods. Unfortunately I don't have a really good camera or the pictures would be awesome. Same as the ones of the goats yesterday.
My plan when I left in the morning was to turn South, to Banff for another look around on a normal day, when I got to Hwy 1. This would also let me take the Bow Valley Parkway back to Lake Louise and avoid Hwy 1.
Two things happened when I got to that junction. Despite it's best effort my Mustang seat had done all it could for my butt for one day and unbeknownst to me hwy 93 goes right through to the parkway. I completely forgot about this even though I drove past it yesterday. It makes perfect sense though because I assume the parkway was the original road before the 4 lane project through this area. This is the long way of saying I never did go back to Banff but did get to ride half of the parkway again. Once back to the village of Lake Louise I did one little bit more. I knew that narrow steep road I rode yesterday climbed pretty high out of town so I went back to the highest point to check it with the GPS. Turns out it climbs
1237 feet in about six kilometers. Like I said, not very steep but it does have some nice bends. On the way I also stopped for a couple shots of the Fairmont Chateau perched up there.

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Photos

new bridge
this is what you cross right after you go through the new cut

HPIM1247
North from Banff

deer
sorry for the crappy close up

Bow Valley Parkway
who would'nt want to ride this?

Fairmont Chateau
at Lake Louise