Retracing my steps with Lori

Day 25 Ride Summary

Distance: 56 mi
Climbing: 3366 feet
Descending: less
Difficulty: medium
Link to workout in Strava

Jasper the cartoon bear was adopted as the mascot of Jasper the town decades ago

Feeling pretty relaxed after a couple days off from riding in Jasper. Well, Lori and I took a ~8mi "mountain bike ride" on our touring bikes but my legs and butt got some "substantial" days off. Interestingly, and sadly without photographic evidence, during our little jaunt on the trail loop outside of town I had my closest encounter of the whole trip with a bear. It was on a hill by the rather-low-traffic trail we were riding, and it prompted me to actually pull out the bear spray and put my finger on the safety, and then we started backing up, and eventually had to turn around since the bear was making its way towards us. Never really got closer than 100 feet, but also wasn't interested in going the other way or letting us pass - so we turned around and rode back the way we came.

In the morning, we left town on singletrack and since a Lori was along, the day's start felt a bit reminiscent of rolling out of Creston, fully loaded, with Albert. Lori had researched an alternate route that had much less traffic than the highway for first 20 mi or so which was a huge win versus the way I'd come into town; so glad to have her on "team make a plan!" It was the "old" road from Jasper south, but it was well maintained and quite a pleasant ride, and we saw a handful of other cyclists on it. I guess it leads to the ski area as one roadie who passed us turned left to climb the ski area access road, but we decided we didn't need any bonus elevation and carried on into the increasingly sunny day.

At the junction of our alternate route and the main route, we visited the heavily-trafficked Athabasca Falls. I...didn't seem to take any pictures of the falls themselves, but check out some pictures of the eroded rocks that the trail to the falls passed through, which were not quite as impressive as the falls, but also less crowded than the falls..

During our lunch stop at a place called Sunwapta Lodge, a (well-known to the staff) raven robbed Lori of her many snacks! It cleverly opened opened one of her bike bags and took off with her energy chews, and then came back to gloat about it. While there, I also had a chance to chat briefly with a tourer going the other way from Germany who was outside when I went to batten down the hatches against further raven exploits. She had some Ortlieb gear I'd never seen (next generation panniers); she pointed out that it was after all a German company and said she had to represent a bit. She was lightly loaded, like Lori, but on a pretty long trip herself and I revisited a spot of envy at traveling light...

While most of the day was pretty decent weather-wise, it rained pretty hard for all of the last 5 miles into our destination (much better than the first 5 miles! Arriving to warmth soaking wet is much less objectionable than riding wet in the cool weather all day). So, we arrived soaking wet to our hostel - which had minimal facilities (pretty much: heaters & an outhouse; no running water - we had to portage water up from the lake and boil it before using). Still, we managed to create a reasonable system of hanging our soaked stuff near the heater, to hopefully dry our stuff before we have to set out tomorrow! (spoiler: it worked!)

Day 26: Glaciers, Starbucks, and Skywalks - Oh my!

Day 26 Ride Summary

Distance: 42 mi
Climbing: 2612 feet
Descending: more!
Difficulty: hard
Link to workout in Strava

views from the hostel

We were slow to get out of the hostel - challenges with no running water and 15 people all trying to use a kitchen simultaneously - but fortunately the weather was dry (as was our stuff after an overnight near the heater!). Only my shirt was still a little damp (but, thanks to the rain, smelled better than it ought to have when I had to reuse it regardless) but that just made for a slightly more invigorating morning.

We had only 5 miles til the big climb up to the glaciers; turns out that a big climb is more fun with a partner! As on the uphill to this point a few days ago, the shoulder was not the most consistent - occasionally shrinking and very exposed - but we had no real close calls to speak of, whew! There is a lot of motor traffic here but fortunately none of it was rude/dangerous to us today.

Made it to the glaciers, had lunch, had starbucks, and did the skywalk, but did not take a chance to touch these glaciers since the trailheads were all far off the route. We knew we'd get a chance in Alaska ;)

After that, still had a lot more climbing throughout the day (1000 feet+), but it was all in smaller chunks which were more manageable. Then, a big bomb downhill (at responsible-ish pace since shoulder was small.)

Shoulder paint line disappeared or was very fainy between the bottom of the hill and Rampart Creek...I should report to banff NP crew to see if they'll repaint for us.

We checked out a viewpoint of the "weeping wall", pretty like many things... in fact, I was led to make the statement that every picnic table within 100 miles of where we're staying has an epic view, since...well, they all do.

Finally: cleanup, dinner, sauna (since it was easy...), charging, sleep.

Day 27: Behind the Scenery...there's just more of the same.

Day 27 Ride Summary

Distance: 51 mi / 82 km
Climbing: 3212 feet / 979 meters
Descending: similar
Difficulty: climbs were strenuous but otherwise medium
Link to workout in Strava

Started with meh breakfast at the only restaurant within 20 miles, followed with a distasteful dessert of a Garmin kerfuffle - not having the route I had planned weeks before available to my bike computer, and had to go back near the room for wifi (real root cause: me not being prepared and having everything synced in advance). Once resolved, we rolled!

There was a "mountain identifier" near the highway which was neat, so we could learn but immediately forget the names of all the surrounding peaks!

Quick downhill into the first big climb, which was the most strenuous of this segment - going up to 10% grade at times. But, we rode the whole thing - almost 4mi - and in decent spirits for the level of strenuosity! Early-in-the-day climbs remain better than later in the day ones for us!

then ground and churned up and down (rollers!) a somewhat-uphill slope to the second big climb which was the same length as the first one but almost 300' more climbing. Still, it didn't go above 6% usually so wasn't too bad, even though this one was late in the day...

We ended up kinda "stuck" on this ridge - just around 6000' - for at least 8 miles. It was hilarious to go under 6k feet, and then climb back over and to just drift along right at 6k or within 15' of it for a couple more miles. Would I have to climb back to it after a (finally!) substantial descent of 80' to say goodbye to 6000? Yes, but finally got to bomb into town.

In Lake Louise the hotel might have been a little nicer than we felt, but we had incredible dessert luck - gluten free chocolate lava cake, which is Lori's favorite but which we had just joked was never a likely menu item, but since it was at the restaurant in our hotel, we had to go try it - even after good pizza, while it wasn't the best, well, it was what we had wished for :D

Had a quick walk around town before returning towards slumber...

Day 28: Goodbye to western canadian riding

Day 28 Ride Summary

Distance: 38mi
Climbing: 1949 feet
Descending: more!
Difficulty: easy-ish
Link to workout in Strava

Last day riding loaded; last day deep in the mountains. They started to retreat a little during the day, as they had hugged us increasingly south of Jasper.

Stopped for lunch, and tried for a milkshake...which was sold out. The associated hike was disappointingly crowded, to the extent that we just bailed instead of going to see the falls even after walking in the crush for a mile or so. Oh well.

Mostly downhill ride into banff - except last uphill bit! Strangely, no wildlife spotted though this was the segment where I saw the most during my first ride of it!

Many fewer riders on the route now that it's open to cars - and had to factor in the forecast: it was supposed to be a rainy day. In practice the rain didn't come, however, the mountains were shrouded but still majestic!