Retracing my steps with Lori
180 degree turn in Jasper (as planned)
Day 25 Ride Summary
Distance: 56 miClimbing: 3366 feet
Descending: less
Difficulty: medium
Link to workout in Strava
This was partially written back when I did the rides; posting belatedly and without pictures - sorry!
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.
We left town on singletrack and since a friend (Lori!) was long, it felt a bit reminiscent of Creston with Albert. Lori found an alternate route that had much less traffic than the highway for first 20 mi or so; glad to have her on team planning! It was the "old" road from Jasper south but it was well maintained and quite a pleasant ride.
At the junction of the alternate route and the main route, we visited the heavily-trafficked athabasca falls. Check out some pictures!
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 her bag and took off with her energy chews, and then came back to gloat about it. 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 she had to represent a bit...
While the day was pretty decent, it did rain pretty hard for all of the last 5 miles, so we arrived soaking wet to the hostel with minimal facilities (pretty much: an outhouse, no running water), but managed to create a reasonable system of hanging 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 miClimbing: 2612 feet
Descending: more!
Difficulty: hard
Link to workout in Strava
view 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 an 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! Shoulder was not the best - occasionally shrinking and very exposed - but we had no real close calls to speak of, whew!
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.