Destination: Kaslo, BC

One of many summits [Enlarge]

Well I needed to escape the city again. Being hit by the car still wasn't sitting well with me and I just got through a major consulting report (about 100 pages). Since I had a few days to myself, on a whim I decided to ride my bike out to visit a friend in Kaslo, BC. A 700 km journey from my home in Vancouver, BC. As with almost everything I try and do, nothing quite went to plan, but good times were had.

Photo Album

Looking back I realize now that it was quite the trip to pull off. If there is any doubt to the insanity of my trip here is a map with the following trip itinerary:

Day 1: 280 km, Vancouver to Princeton Day 2: 310 km, Princeton to Nelson Day 3: 70 km, Nelson to Kaslo

As you can see only a couple hard days of riding followed by a gentle cruise into Kaslo. The gentle day will allow me to get into the right frame of mind when I show up at my friends cabin in the Kootenay Glacier Provincial Park. Yes its the home of the fabled beer.

Since these are some epic days, I knew I had to pack light. I decided that all I was taking was a sleeping bag, and a Hennessy hammock. My goal was to keep the pack to less than 10 lbs of gear. This may seem sparce but I also know that some other friends were coming up by car, so this gave me a few days to hang with everyone then I could get a ride home and maybe hit the Island for the last few days of summer. Only problem was:

1. It poured rain slowing progress.
2. I had an old injury flare up on the first day.
3. There was a lot more climbing from Princeton to Kaslo than I
   remembered. Funny how driving is so much easier.

Day 1:

Climb out of Hope, BC.

When I woke up for the big day, it was rain bloody hard. So hard in fact that I ended up leaving wearing all the riding gear I use in the dead of winter. So much for the 10lb summer pack. It also didn't help that it was freaking cold for August. In total I had maybe 10 km where it wasn't raining. I don't care who you are but your progress is slowed when the conditions suck. Anyways I plodded the number 7 highway until I was in Hope by the afternoon. I was about 130 km out side of princeton so I grabbed some coffee and got another meal in me. I took a break and pondered weather I was was going to make it to Princeton. Usually its about 4-5 hours from Hope to Princeton and I was running out of time.

The next leg was hell. The first climb out of Hope to the Hope slide went well. It's fairly steep but I made good progress climbing out of the saddle for must of it. What I didn't realized was that there was another 50 km of climbing to get to the top of the Cascades. I made it to the entrance of Manning Park. I was ecstatic, couldn't be that far until the Resort and the camping. Grab some dinner and cruise down the back side into Princeton.

Then I saw the horrible sign "40 km to the resort." Now in a car this is nothing but by now its been a long day in the saddle and the climb keeps getting steeper and steeper. I noticed the 2 km signs coming painfully slow, it was taking forever and I was losing day light. Then the worst part. My IT-band in my leg flared up and it was getting hard to ride. This was the same injury that made the ironman hell for me. I was having to stretch it out every 5 minutes. Now I was really losing time. Then after what seemed forever I saw another sign. Could it be? Another 19 km to the resort! Argggg!

I eventually made it in by the start of dark. It was raining and I had no lights. This sucked. I was 60 km behind schedule and I was cold wet and grumpy. But at least I had Alison Pass (1342m or 4400 ft) behind me. I ate like a king in the resort restaurant and set up camp.

Day 2:

Sunday Summit

I woke up after a good sleep, it was dawn and the rain had stopped. I was ecstatic until I tried to get up and realized I couldn't bend my knee. I was devastated. There was no way I wanted to turn around after one friggin day! But I also knew I couldn't ride with my knee like this. I wasn't sure what to do. So I ended up lulling about and stretching the whole morning. My knee felt better but I was not sure how far I could make it. After some contemplation I decided to take my time and see if I could at least make it to Princeton. Maybe I would camp here for a few days and take a bus home or maybe take a bus to Kaslo.

Progress was slow and I needed to stretch all the time, but I was able to survive the decent and climb to Sunday Summit, just outside of Manning Park. By 1 pm I was in Princeton and feeling the hurt since I hadn't eaten yet that day.

The rest of this day was a bit of a blur, but for some reason I decided to attempt the next 120 km into Osoyoos. The strange part is I made it. I made sure to stretch all the time and focus on a soft spin. Some how this worked, my knee was tight but not too painful. Just before night fall I rolledinto town and scored a cool camping spot on the beach.

Day 3

View from Anarchist Mountain

By this point I was pretty late, I should have been in Kaslo by now but I set out. The climb out of Osoyoos to the top of Anarchist Summit is a killer. Plus I had the spectacle of 300 sport bikes from Sportbike West blowing by at 200+ km/hr. All in all it was an interesting morning.

By mid day I knew getting to Nelson was not going to happen. Maybe Grand forks or at very best Castlegar. Plus my knee was a sort of off and on affair. I couldn't push it too hard and I had to focus on a very smooth spin, but I could manage by riding in and out of the saddle all the time to give my knee a bit of a break. The killer was none of the terrian here is flat, its just giant rolling hills, and it is so hard to maintain any sort of respectable pace. By the afternoon I had phoned and found out my friends were on their way to Kaslo and they were looking for me along the way. I just had to make sure I was on the road so they could see me.

A few outside of Grand forks, just when I started to think it wasn't worth hurting myself any more my friends showed up and I happily jumped into the car 550 km after I left Vancouver. By evening in Kaslo, in a Cabin in the middle of nowhere relaxing.

Yeeehaaaww!