Over hill, over dale, we will hit the dusty trail
Thursday, August 3
We finally hit the road today, exiting the high life in Banff and heading down the trail towards, eventually, the Mexican border. What do they say, “a journey of 4,000km begins with a single step. Or in our case pedal stroke.
We began the day at our favorite calorie factory, McDonalds, grabbing the highest calorie number breakfast I could find. That wasn’t a stretch there, so we got the nutrition situation under control. On our way there I saw an elk, walking across the street in Banff, wandering along like it belonged, which I’m sure it does. Not something I see every day in Ohio, but in rural Alberta I bet it’s a thing. We also headed to the local IGA for a little bit of something to carry with us to eat. I do say a little something because the sandwich I bought was about half of what I should have bought. Pesos I was full from Mickey D’s and should have thought with my head, not with my full belly. Lesson learned for the rest of the trip.
So we headed out of town. The trail begins not too far from our YWCA hotel, when we pass a much fancier one, the Banff Sprigs hotel. It was huge, beautiful, and looks like it’s been there a while. There was a statue outside , of some guy named Van Horne. I’m not sure, but I’m going to guess Van Horne had something to do with the Canadian Pacific railroad, which brought folks to this area back in the late 1880’s(?) I would guess a railroad magnate, as such dudes tend to do, create a railroad and a reason to take the railroad. Profit on both ends for Mr. Van Horne.
The trail started just behind the parking lot for the hotel and off we went. We had a pretty good morning, moving along at a decent speed, at least I thought it was decent until we got overtaken by multiple people on mountain bikes. I couldn’t feel too bad about it, as we were carrying a whole lot more than folks on unladen bikes. The trail went up, and down, and there were a whole lot of rocks on the trail. We had gone almost 20 miles through some beautiful landscapes, with mountains slammed up against the valley we were riding through. There was quite a haze across the sky as more fires have been raging through the area. We’ve seen these all summer all throughout the Midwest US, so now perhaps we will have to avoid them up close.
Eventually we came to a lake and made a turn onto a road. As we were riding by a woman said something about riding through the , but I didn’t know what she was talking about…yet. Past the lake we turned onto a road that was “paved” with stones. The road was about the equivalent of a four lane highway, and was apparently the only highway the area. Every car that went by trailed its own atmosphere of white dust that immediately blocked out the sun and covered our bodies and bikes with the same. The faster the cars and trucks drove, the bigger the dust storm. And some of these folks thought they were driving the Baja 1,000 race as they barreled down this awful road. On and we went for over 30 miles, cooking on dust and trying to stay upright. The stones laid down were so loose that you went from riding to surfing stones continually. We sought the side of the road for the most part, where the stones were the sparsest, but sometimes we’re forced back in, depending on where we could find the clearest track. I do have to say that some of the folks driving this road has some mercy in their souls as they slowed down and drove as far to the other side as possible. But most we’re doing’ The Baja to our chagrin.
We did find a nice little respite with picnic tables by another lake, at our too small lunch and went back on our dusty way. After running the dust highway for what felt like most of the day we finally got to some pavement-yay pavement! We were pretty tired, choked with white dust and ready to find a place to stay. Even though this was not supposed to be on our route, we went to a nice provincial park called Boulton. We found the information center where the folks there said that the camping spots would all be reserved but there is a store up that way. We were free to camp at the super primitive “hiker biker” camp nearby, which cannot turn us away. They said we should probably set up camp, go up the hill towards the store, then come back to camp. I was sure we could talk someone at the “real” campground into letting us in so we went up to the store instead. I’m very glad we did so because we found a nice campsite with showers and everything waiting for us there. Never take the first deal if you think there’s a better one, this time literally up the road.
So we showered, ate, got some ice cream, washed our dusty clothes (also in the showers) and set up camp, oiled our dirty chains, and retired for the night.
We only made it 50 miles, but it took us all day from about 7:30 AM to about 4PM. Which made me feel very good about yesterday’s decision to push off another day. If we had started yesterday at 3 we would have run the dust bowl at night and likely would have finished until almost midnight. Yay gut feeling, you were right, at least this time.
**special note. Moments after finger-typing this on my phone last night, Jerry announce that his Apple Watch had told him his heart was once again in A-fib, or atrial fibrillation, a condition where the heart does not contract normally or in rhythm. We had feared this, and we will have to see if he/we can continue, as this will negatively affect his health and is a serious concern. More as I learn it…
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