Western Dreamz TripLog
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Tuesday July 6, 2004 - "Rain Dance"
Sunny skies this morning! And cereal by the smell of the feedlot. Today we drove through Calgary and treated ourselves to Subway, Ice, Water and Beer. Then it was into the mountains finally. We stopped in Banff (actually, we drove through it and then left) and Lake Louise (Stopping for 5 minutes and two pictures) and decided that there were about three thousand people too many. Hoping to meet up with Rachel for some mountain guidance, we headed toward Jasper. THere was some amazing driving along this stretch despite the weather swinging between blazing sun and cold pelting rain. We talked briefly with two cyclists at a "scenic lookout" and discovered that one of them had ridden from Alaska. They were en route to Calgary (not Halifax as I had suggested they should be. Wusses.) We pulled into the Columbia Icefields centre and took a look at the glacier from afar rather than spending $30 each to ride the ice truck in the rain. Next to the Icefields is the "Columbia Icefields Campground" which was actually quite amazing. We set up camp in the rain (again) right next to a waterfall. Firewood in the National parks is unlimited when you purchase a $6/night fire permit; you have to have the permit to start a fire regardless of your wood situation. It worked out that we did not buy a permit there due to the weather. Luckily there was a small central hut with a wood burning stove taht we took full advantage of. We created quite a furnace and welcomed some cyclists from another site into the den of warmth. THey turned out to be a pair of Belgian couples who were very nice. One couple had flown into Calgary from Belgium and the other from Washington DC, where they have lived for a year due to work. We enjoyed some minor American bashing and shared a few stories as they passed around a bottle of JD in a plastic bag. Hilarious. So get this: in Belgium, everyone gets four or five weeks vacation by default, and you are entitled to a year's leave from your job, during which the government gives you $600CDN a month for free, and your employer MUST take you back afterwards in your original job if you want it. These couples were enjoying a week-long bike trek through the mountains, then heading back to work. I think they were jealous that we were just getting started on our 5 weeks, but of course they get to go back to vacation-land when they are done. According to the GPS, sunrise/sunset there was 5:40AM/10:10PM -- a long day indeed. Sleeping by the waterfall was great.. very lulling. Unfortunately we both woke up several times from the driving rain we got off and on through the night. Can everyone please stop doing their damn rain dances? Thank you. PS: I lied about BC. We are still in Alberta but we are at least in the Rockies!
Wednesday July 7, 2004 "Winter in Jasper"
More rain in the morning so we packed and left for Jasper. Forecast for the coming days has highs of 12-17 and lows of 0-5. Great. On a brighter note, we ate a decent breakfast in town and then hit up a couple of bike shops loking for info on trails. The mother lode was at the tourist info centre though, were we got a free map and some advice from a cycling tourist info giver guy. So guess what? Today we took the bikes off of the rack for the first time and went for a ride. We spent over 2 hours doing a 25km loop, and pretty much murdered our bodies since we had been doing nothing active for quite a while. Average speed: 11.4. Number of times I got made fun of by an old lady for walking my bike up a hill: 1. It was worth it though, despite the smell eminating from my armpits right now. Another stroke of luck brought us a phone call from Rachel just as we were about to register for a campsite... Though she could not hear us talking (great Rogers cell service up here), she let us know where she was staying so we turned around and grabbed a site at the same grounds as her, only about five minutes away. We are setting up for dinner now and will crack out the maps afterward to get the inside scoop on all the trails and towns we should visit. I have a feeling we will continue westward tomorrow, finally into BC, and hopefully escaping Jasper's shitty weather system that is moving in.
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