The Canada Border and Traveling Alone

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Today at midday I reached the border with Canada. It felt so good. I had started in Jarbidge NV and finished at the Canada border -- clocking 1,462 miles on my bike -- without deviating from the trail or taking a fall. I had chosen to avoid the few optional highly technical sections. I consider myself lucky just to be able to ride the regular track -- and for a 70 year old man riding alone, a fall or injury can create some problems.

Unfortunately, there is little at the Canada border to support a celebration. The restaurant was closed, as was the border. The ride up through the valley of the Kootenai river was a delight. The flat green farms alternated with wetlands and lakes. All gleaming in the morning sun. The Kaniksu National Forest and the Selkirk Mountains rose in the East. The road and the river flow through the border post, side by side, up into Canada.

I get asked by many why I travel alone. I thought I would take the time to answer here.

By traveling alone, one opens the door to meeting others. Casual conversation is immediate and friendly. Passers by have no compunction in stopping to comment on one's attire or motorcycle or the lack of rain. For some reason folks like my bike (now 10 years old, a faded red covered with dust and the scratch marks that used to be signatures) and ask what the marks mean. Where are you from ? Where are you headed ? to which I respond with the facts and the obligatory "... so do you ride ?" Of course they do. That's why they stopped by. Then I sit back and smile and enjoy the story as it spills out. Most would like to join my journey if only they could. Some offer a place to stay. All share the feeling that motorcycling through this land is special.

At Lochsa Lodge, Rebecca and Caroline called me over to where they were sitting in comfortable lawn chairs, outside their exquisitely finished log cabin. I spent half an hour with them, sitting in the grass listening to their stories. Rebecca was the descendant of pioneers who had settled in Boise, in the late 19th century. Her father, a logger, had spent much time traveling the state, and had lived for a while in Elk City (where I had spent the night on my way up the trail ). She enjoyed the connection, and mused whether she might have some un-identified siblings in the town. Father had enjoyed his time there a lot. They both talked about their appreciation of the wilderness, and the special time that they had set aside to enjoy it together.

My best conversation was held in the dark, floating in the warmth of an enormous pool filled from the local hot spring. I was talking to a couple from Missoula MT, who also rode motorcycles along Backcountry Discovery Routes -- and had completed quite a few of them. Yes, they also rode the BMW GS (now dated by the arrival of the KTM 990 and other machines). They had done the Idaho route not long ago and were full of queries and recommendations. They had also done others in Washington, Colorado and California -- all significantly harder that the one I was on. With only the Mid Atlantic and the Northeast routes to my name, I was very respectful of their views and stories. I never did get a good look at them though -- through the steam and the dark -- but I abandoned ship before they did and retreated to my cabin. The next morning they found me as I was saddling up, introduced themselves and then went in for another session at the steam bath. Very pleasant.

What is also interesting his how riders one meets on the trail, in the middle of the woods, are quite short with each other. Where did you start? How far you going? What is the road like? Where did you spend the night? What tires you using? Its almost competitive at the beginning. Answers are always a laconic understatement -- "no problem". "A little muddy" may mean the rider got stuck up to the axles in muck; "kinda rocky" may mean football sized boulders littering the road. After a while though stories of shared mishaps and mess ups clear the air for conversation. People traveling in pairs seemed more open to conversation. Loners, like me, wanted to be left alone. I met two such riders, one going North, the other South. The latter had come in from New Hampshire via the Trans America Trail and was headed on to Nevada and other backcountry routes. He made gesture that I found touching -- he set a stone alongside the gas pump for my kick stand to rest on, so I could park my bike without it leaning over too much. Nice. The fellow going North poor guy had spend a freezing night at Trinity Lakes, his GPS had gone crazy and he was dead reckoning the route with a map. Seemed in good spirits and passed me as I ate lunch. There was the couple from Michigan that followed me up the Lolo Motorway, who had lost the third member of their party to a suspension malfunction on his KTM. The road is hard on the machines.

I guess the final reason is a selfish one. Alone I am free to follow a whim. To stop when I want to take photos or just look again at some feature. To change destination. To go fast or slow, without the need for deliberation (outside of my own head, which is hard enough). It works for a while. Then I need to call Beth and get back into the real world again.

Days Travel on BDR - Clark Fork ID to Canada Border ID - 86 mi.

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Photos

Wetlands along the Kootenai River
which flows North into Canada and joins the Columbia at Castlegar

Documenting arrival
He doesn't look it, but he is very happy.