| Starting out in Jaspar, after a days rest, I met 5 other riders who were going my way. At last I'm no longer alone and the company will help make the miles flow by a little faster. Four of the riders were professors at the U of WY in Laramie and the tall fellow John, on the left in the photo is from Holland and was doing a trip around western Canada seeing all the Nat. Parks. (that's me 2nd from left) Away we all went down through the park and over some very tough climbs through the Columbia Ice Fields and a lot of the ride was overcast and it got cold enough that we had to start layering on some extra cloths. The senery was absolutly magnificient, the traffic lite and when we got to a glacier that was near enough to the road to go out and walk on we opted not to do so as our feet were already cold enough. We only did about 60 miles that first day as we found a really neat hostel to stay at. It was back in the forest up on a hill about 100 meters off the road and had a glaical stream running behind it which was clean and pure and we could all drink from it. I think I had the greatest shower I had had on the whole trip here. They had a sauna up on another small hill and inside was a wood burner with a Hugh aluminum pot on it full of very hot water, on the floor was another pot full of Ice cold water and in one corner of the room was a gravel pit that you stood in and on the ceiling was a sprinkling type of watercan (2 gal) with a rope tied to the spout. You almost filled it with the hot water and then cooled it to your prefered temp by adding the cold stuff and then by pulling the rope you could tilt it so it showered you. Kind of hard to describe this whole thing but it sure felt good after a cold day of riding and it was kind of fun too! The next day was a lot warmer and we visited several senic areas and saw some great water falls, the ride very enjoyable to say the least and in the evening we found a very nice campground where we all tented it and we did sort of a group cooking thing where we all cooked up a big pot of something and then we all did sort of a pot luck each sharing a little of each others stuff and it worked out well. In the a.m. we struck out on the last leg of the park arriving at the hostel in Lake Louise in the early afternoon. John left us here and headed off through Canada's Glacier Nat Park and to Vancouver where he was going to catch his flight home where he was going on another tour across Asia to Katmandu and Napal. (wish I could have gone with him) The professors also took a different route, but it rejoined mine later it was 99 miles shorter but took a high traffic route and it was the 4th of July weekend so I opted to stay on the lesser traveled roads. I proceeded over another cont. divide and went down through Kootnay Nat Pk. and into Radium Hot Springs. What a great soak that was. I met another rider here who I rode with for the rest of the day then the next day I caught up with the professors who said they made a bad choice by going the short cut as they almost got ran over several times. We rode together for a couple of days then they left my route to head on to Laramie. Several times, while in Canada, I had spotted this rider who would just pass me by while I was stopped somewhere but would never stop to talk. Seems like he liked to ride alone and didn't really want to ride with others as everyones crusing speed is different and it's hard to try to change your riding habits to stay with someone else. Finally while on my last day through the south of Alberta he stopped at a small cafe where I was gulping ice cream and we got to talk for a bit. His name was Geeza Almadi (he was just about my age (old) so I just called him Geezer) he was from Edmonton and was doing a 30 day tour of Canada and the US. He was riding a mountain bike pulling a very heavely loaded trailer so I said I would pace him and if I couldn't keep up I would meet him in Waterton Lakes for the night. He was riding between 1 and 2 mph slower than I was so I had no trouble keeping up with him and we rode together to the Waterton Lakes area together where he wanted to stop for the night but I decided to go on to a campground up high on the mountain as it was a long hard climb to the top to the Montana border and I didn't want to make that climb first thing in the a.m. The next day he met me at the top and we rode on for about 60 miles or so until we came to the campgrounds at the base of Logan Pass where we were going to enter Glacier Nat. Park. We also met up with a large tour group that day that was doing a ride in the area and we rode with them for about 35 miles until they turned off to go a different way. It was a very windy with winds up to 30 mph big waves and white caps on the lakes and not a friendly wind either as most of the time it was right in our faces or to our side and we had difficulty staying on the road. We made camp that night at the base of Logan Pass in a Nat Pk campground where we met a lot of nice people and they let us camp for free. We got up at 4:00 am to check the weather, it was clear and windless so we ate, broke camp and were on the road by 5:15. I think I had the most beautiful and worst expierence of the whole trip this day. As we were making the climb and were still in deep forest all around us you could hear, but not see, the water falls that were hidden in the trees, birds singing and a wonderful stillness was everywhere, the trees were just budding out with their spring foilage and the pine, fir and ceader were really giving off a great mixture of aromas. We were watching the sunlite come down the mountain peaks as the sun rose behind us and in the middle of all this wonderful expierence here came daddy big bucks with his giant Surburban SUV running to rich and all these great black clouds of exaust spueing from his tailpipe. The air was so still that all this stink just hung in the air for at least 10 minutes and we just climbed along gaging on the stuff. I said to Geezer, "Just think of how many of these damn things are running around the US and it makes you wonder why we all don't die from asphixation." Click here to go to next page |