Banff National Park

We had a day off today to explore Banff and Lake Louise.

It was forecast for storms, so we hired a car so as not to ruin the sight seeing with wet clothes and whinging.

we drove around all day  - here are the pics!

Hinton to Canmore (Banff)

Let me begin by saying - we were not going to go to Banff.

More thunderstorms had been forecast, and we were just going to bypass Banff, and make a run to Calgary and then down to the US border and Montana.

We even went as far as to tell the relatives we were going to stay with in Canmore that not to worry and we were going straight to Montana.

As the fates would have it though, the storm arrived a day early, and it poured with rain overnight, the power went out and we had a gloomy morning in Hinton on our day off.

That afternoon, we had a storm roll through again, (or maybe the same storm) but it finished early, the sky cleared and we had a clear view south towards Banff. We decided that Banff was too awesome to pass up, and we needed to find some accommodation asap. Our original plan was to stay with a relative in the descriptive sense of the word only (my sister-in-laws cousin) and rather be the person that cancels then un-cancels at the last minute, we found some cheap accommodation just outside of Banff. (as usual, the cheapest places are just outside town) We were staying two nights, giving us a day off to explore Banff and Lake Louise.

We left Hinton, and back tracked down our route from the day off yesterday, and struck into new tracks just south of Jasper.

There was loads of traffic on the road, a billion RV's and quite a few bikers. We were soon to realise why.

The road from Jasper to Banff is like something from another world. To call the scenery breathtaking is probably one of the biggest understatements a person could make. It's punched in the balls, snort a line of wasabi and take a lungful of sea water breathtaking.

And just when you think things couldn't be more awesome, you ride around a snaking turn to the bottom of a valley and realise that the mountain range you thought was really high becomes HOLY FUCK I AM BUT AN INSECT AND SUPREMELY INSIGNIFICANT!!! high.
 The best part is, you ride so close to the base of them as they rocket up like skyscrapers, that you get that  weak at the knees feeling even though your not standing...

We passed a cyclist, who had just dumped his bike on the ground and was just sitting in the grass leaning back on his hands and just trying to take them all in. Good luck. I think you could sit there for a full 2 hours, and still not get over the sheer visual impact they make on you. They are so detailed as well. Each 500m or so you look at at the same range you have been sneaking peeks up at for the last few kilometers, and almost magically, they have changed again, with some other cool outcrop, tower or stone minaret smashing up into the sky.

You then feel a buzz through your hands... realise you have strayed onto the rumble strip the side of the road or the centre line (again) straighten up the bike, and then sneak another look. Repeat.
This went on for about 200km.

We saw Glaciers, and stopped to take photos of a couple, but it was a two edged sword, because the rest areas are packed with tourists, and you let all the Bus sized RV's that you had worked so hard to pass over the last hour get passed you on the main road while you're just trying to get your bike and the Glacier in the same photo.
The buffeting behind the trucks and RV's is very annoying and tiring, sometimes it takes you to the limit of your endurance. If you are ever in a Bus or a 4x4 and a biker roars past over double lines, it's not because they are impatient, or a risk taker, it's just because riding in the 110km/h wake of  behemoth is just intolerable. Best way I can describe it is being pushed in either side of the chest repeatedly, while getting slapped on alternate sides of your helmet. It's ok for a few minutes, but I will be fucked if I put up with it for more than a few minutes. Even less If I've already done 400k's that morning already. Even less if I have already passed THAT SAME BASTARD!!! twice before. :)

but enough ranting.. back to the riding.

We rode the icefield parkway, that took us up high into the mountains, and then a curvy fast-ish run back down through the valley before we ended up on a four lane highway to make the final 60km into Banff.

We arrived at our 'scenic cabin' accommodation to find that it did not look anything like the pictures, and we just couldn't bring ourselves to stay one night there let alone two. The office was shut until 4pm, and there was no way I was going to wait around in the sun in my bike gear for an hour and a half until then to see inside the cabins. The dilapidated outside and the foot high grass all around them was enough, let alone the holey flyscreens.
Luckily their WiFi was not secure, and I took great delight in using it to jump online, cancel our booking, and book 2 nights at a place just down the road.

We still got charged $275AUD for the cancelled accommodation, but the fates were turning our way, as the new place was booked out, and we got upgraded to a loft apartment free of charge. The new place also had a Spa and Sauna and was within walking distance on the shops and more importantly THE PUB! Bonus!

We checked in, and shrugged off the $275 dent in our budget by pretending we didn't get an upgrade, and we paid full price for the room, which ironically came out to be the same amount if we just booked it outright. Both promising never to bring it up again, we walked to the pub for a well deserved beer.

When the girl behind the bar asked me what I wanted to drink, I (as usual) feeling like I needed to be a smartarse, said 'a giant Canadian please'  and even though I really did want the biggest,  coldest, most refreshing beer they had -  I did not expect a 1litre 'Schooner' to be put on the bar in front of me, but it was most welcome and really hit the spot. It had been 27 degrees most of the day, and I was sporting a wicked Helmet Sunburn mark.

We had another beer, (a smaller one this time), and then giggled our way to the pizza place next door for dinner, before having a Spa and then slept like the dead.

Bikes, Biker and Mountains

River, Conifers and Snow.

Jasper National Park

DAY OFF TODAY!!!!!!!

well almost...

We're still 80km from Jasper, and there is a short ride from Hinton where our digs are into Jasper proper.
We pre-purchased tickets on the Sky Tram yesterday, and took a short ride into Jasper to jump on it.

We stripped the luggage off my bike, except for the top box which can hold 1 helmet, and another one can be locked under the seat - so no carrying helmets! Seriously, it's worth having a top box just so you don't have to carry your helmet around. It sounds like nothing, but it's a massive pain in the arse after a while.

The road from Hinton to Jasper is an amazing ride, the mountains are spectacular. I found myself reaching to turn my helmet cam on every 30 seconds or so - which is always a good sign that you are enjoying yourself and that you mind hasn't drifted off back to paying bills or what needs to be fixed on the house at home.

Jasper is an amazing place, and I would love to come back here one day and do some hiking or paragliding or both at the same time, there looked to be some great trails for doing Hike and Fly

After a visit to the top of the Gondola, the predicted storms started to roll in over the distant peaks and we decided to get the next Gondola down. We didn't bring any rain gear, and FUCK getting wet again! we're on a high score of 2 days without rain - and I'm hoping to improve on it. But as I look at the rain on the window outside right now, It's looking doubtful for tomorrow....

movie - 127 has to be uploaded!!

The Road from Hinton to Jasper

The view from the SkyTram Terminal

The Jasper SkyTram

Grande Prarie to Hinton (Jasper)

Short ride to day, only 330km we had a choice to take Highway 40 or 43. 43 was a bit shorter by all accounts, but was not as pretty.

After the GPS fucked up trying to get us going down highway 43 by sending us down the wrong street, I arrogantly continued straight on until it told me she was re-calculating.. and then by magic it sent us down Highway 40! ( I showed that bitch... tell me to go down that street.. I'll tell you sumthin.. mumble mumble)

Highway 40 was very reminiscent of our first days on the Alaska Highway, raised up road with grass verges, with standing Pines, Spruce and Birch as far as the Eye could see in places.

We passed loads of people camping in in tents and RV's in all the rest stops, and loads of people with Dirt bikes, Quad bikes and side-by-sides. There seems to be a real push to get out and enjoy the summer, and these guys do it large.

Highway 40 also has a metric shit-tonne of roadworks.

I honestly think that maybe roadworks are a national Canadian Past time. Clubs and groups come together, find a perfectly serviceable road, dynamite the fuck out of it.. and then put it all back together again. Hours of fun for the whole family.

Between the roadworks, we had some great relaxing riding, we rode next to beautiful valleys and green hills. There was very little traffic, and the roads never threw up any surprises. There were nicely cambered and it allowed us to have a good look around without having to pay to much attention.

All morning we were riding towards mountains in the distance, and we road through some spectacular valleys and gorges along the way before our one and only fuel stop at a place called Grand Cache. Grand Cache was a beautiful mountain town, there were amazing views across to the mountains, and even though we HAD to stop for fuel there (it was the only stop available) it was cool to stop there and take a few photos, grabbing a bite to eat at A&W.  A&W is kind of like a Macca's, and seems more popular in Canada than McDonald's at least we have seen more of them. We've probably only seen 3 McDonald's stores in Canada so far.

After eating, we headed down the other side of the mountain from Grande Cache to the junction of highway 40 and the Yellow Head Highway that runs to Jasper, Banff and Lake Louise.

Hinton is a small town about 80km from Jasper, and ironically the hotels are about $80 cheaper. We're having a day off tomorrow to go and look around Jasper and go up on the Jasper Sky Tram that takes you to about 7,200ft.

Mountains at Grand Cache

ROADWORKS PARTY! Sunday at my hoose! bring a shovel this time eh ya fokin hoser..

Tall trees and nice roads

Beautiful Valleys!

Athabasca River

Dawson Creek to Grande Prarie (Alberta)

We had a really short ride this morning, only 130km! The leg from Dawson Creek to Jasper would have been over 500km, so we decided to take a short day today to break things up.

We're officially out of British Columbia and now in Alberta and are definitely in the Prairies now, lots of flat land, grain plantations and agriculture. Every farm seems to have a fracking well on it though, just like home. I guess that tech is never going back in the box.

Easy riding though -  great big wide straight roads.

I manage to hit a pot hole the size of a bathtub, I thought I had popped a tyre is hit so hard, but no vibrations (indicating a damaged rim) and no warnings on the Dash to indicate a puncture. (the bike has tyre pressure monitoring)

There are loads of bugs around, they hit your visor and splat everywhere. yellow guts with flapping wings stuck in it.

It is all just sun sun sun at the moment, although I caught of what I think are the Storms from yesterday on the Horizon, although they should be about 300km away by now.

Unless they are following us..... hmmm.

I am still amazed that 2 out of 3 vehicles on the road are Trucks. I am quite taken with the massive ones... especially the Ford F-350 crew cabs. I think I might have to buy an 80's model one when I get home and just go full redneck :)

Welcome to Alberta!

Big Sky, Big Roads, Big Fields.

Storms are sentient I swear. And they hold a grudge.

This truck is the shit!
Some of them have massive turbos and sound awesome.

Fort Nelson to Dawson Creek

Today the terrain flattened out and we spent the day riding through spruce forests, farms, and areas of previous wild fires right up to the road. The day started out gloriously sunny, I had reservations the previous evening, as there were a whole front of thunderstorms moving through, but the day dawned a little overcast, but no evidence of storms!

Soon enough the clouds burned off, and we had some strong sun and it felt great.

As we rode down a slight hill - I got my first glimpse of two giant thunderheads in the distance, They were maybe in our general direction but slightly off to the North, about 100 km away.

First glimpse of the Storms

The closer and closer we got to the storms, the more an more it looked like they were going to shit on us in a BIG way. were two main ones, one had LOADS of vertical development and looked to go over 80,000 feet and it was pitch black in its guts. Full of anger and destruction!

I really didn't want to put on our rain gear again, it was such a nice day right now, and our riding gear was finally getting a good air out. I know I've said it many times - but wearing rain gear sucks!!

ooh shit....

Pretty soon we had to stop for fuel, we'd done about 250km, and our bikes only have a range of about 320km on this shitty North American fuel (premium fuel is only 91 octane!) back home we get 350km + a tank on 98 octane.

We fueled up, all the while keeping one eye on the sky. I was confident that if we booked it, we could thread the needle between the two storms. If it did dump on us, we would likely have to stop and find shelter somewhere, it would be too dangerous to ride in. We could see the rain actively pouring out the bottom and it looked very heavy.

Threading the needle. Note the rain shitting out of the storm to the left.

We jumped on the bikes and flogged it, doing 120-130 as the storms closed in on us,  The closer we got, the more and more it appear that we were going to get shit on from a great height. It looked as if our track would take us right under the very largest storm. It was always there off to the left, it was like we were racing a freight train to the crossing.

OOOOHH SHIT!!!

We got closer and closer to the storm and it was more and more obvious we were going to get fucked.
 We overtook cars and trucks as we came up fast on them, barely hesitating to move out to the left around them, more like a swerve than an actual lane change. We changed down gears for corners, hammering it out the other side. Seconds saved would add up to minutes, and even half a minute might be all we needed to avoid getting stomped.
We kept pushing very hard and manage to ride right under the very edge of the the first storm as it passed across the highway.

passing under the edge of the first storm

I breathed a sigh of relief,  we had made it by the skin of our teeth past the first one, Hopefully we would pass the second one as well, it seemed to be set further to the east, but we had lost sight of it while passing so close to the first cell. I was quite hopeful,  and then we came out from under the cell and rounded another corner:

Fuck.

 The storm closed in around us, and we got hammered by a few seconds of very large drops of rain, no more than an annoyance, but they sounded like rocks hitting my helmet they were that big. A direct hit on your visor was like being shot by a sniper and scared the shit out of you. There were lightning flashes and thunder claps that you could hear over the bike and wind noise.

Caught under the 2nd Storm cell

 We pushed on, and after a another few seconds of heavy drops, we came out from under the storm and into bright sunshine. We had JUST made it through before it shat down with rain. Looking in my mirror, we could see the storm towering behind us and lighting forking to the ground. and just a solid wall of water hammering the road behind us!

It probably does not translate into words as exciting as it was, we were pushing the bikes hard, loaded up at 130 through corners and overtaking trucks and cars without slowing. It was a blast and I loved every second of it.

After the excitement of the last 300km, the remaining 150km seemed rather dull, we passed through more agricultural towns, past fields of crops, tractors working and countless people with quad bikes and side by sides.

We rolled into Dawson Creek about 2pm and checked in to our motel. Megans bike had run fine, with no troubles from yesterdays fix.

The Alaskan Highway starts at Dawson Creek for people heading North. We had started on it all the way back at Fairbanks a weeks worth of solid riding, and it is one of the most amazing pieces of road I have ever ridden. I could quite happily turn around and ride the whole thing again in the opposite direction, even just to see what the views are like in the other direction. I feel ambivalent, elated for the achievement, but sad that it it's now over.

Seeing as how my bike had my back today (that'll do bike... that'll do) I treated it to a photo in front of the Alaska highway sign, and then a wash.

That done it was then time for beer and more route planning! the next few days will see us head to Jasper and Banff and some great scenery and time off from riding!

We're having a lie in and a VERY short day tomorrow, only 170km to shorten up the leg to jasper. we are very tired still, and still not sleeping well, despite being shattered at the end of everyday.

Start of the Alaska Highway. Hope you like roadworks :)

Well.. it's a little bit cleaner anyway...

Watson Lake to Fort Nelson (British Columbia)

Were in British Columbia Today! it was farewell to the Yukon and hello to BC.

Amazing day riding today - even though we had more roadworks and more rain again, absolutely stunning scenery!!

It was up there in the top 5 rides of my life, maybe even the top two! just mountains mountains mountains and rivers, bridges, twisties, hills and just great great riding. It was a big day, 7hrs and 514km.

Here's the latest tracklog form the GPS - Each colour represents a day's riding:

Track log at day 6 of Riding

We saw 6 bears and I made damn sure I got pics and head cam of at least one of them. Wifi is pretty shit where we're staying at the moment, but I'll try and upload something. I at least have pics off the Camera to upload. This time I actually pulled over and did a U-turn to go back a take pics.

It sucks when you see something you would like to take a closer look at but can't. I would definitely like to come back at another time and do the Alaskan Highway in a camper. There are just so many places to stop and stay, you really are spoiled for choice.

We also saw today 3 Bison, 2 moose, 3 big horn sheep, and 4 ptarmigan, and prairie dogs!

Road Side Bison.

Brown Bear. He wouldn't sit still despite yelling at him?..her?

The other bears are on the helmet cam and so are the moose - but as usual - I bet they are small even though I was right beside them!!

Here is the brown bear encounter, If it uploads to youTube that is, it was closer than it looks... I was trying to get him to sit nice for a photo, as you can see from the pic above - it just didn't work out - He wasn't having a bar of me,

The day started out a bit overcast, and clearing into a hot and sunny day, and then the heavens opened with a storm again about lunchtime.

We stopped at a great log house for a snack (peanut butter cookies and bananas) right near a place that has more hot springs like the ones we visited on out day off in Whitehorse, but these ones were Au-naturale and required a hike through the forest to get to. Next time.

We rode through more stunning scenery and great roads, over rivers, through valleys and over hills, before we ended up at more roadworks.

It must have been the best place to work on a road gang I have ever seen... I swear if I was working that job - I would be dragging it out for as long as I could! It was in the middle of a beautiful valley with towering peaks all round, and bubbling stream running right through the middle. I would have seriously slept at work in a tent to save the commute time.

I took helmet cam of the whole thing, but it's far too long to post on the crappy Wifi we have at the moment here in Fort Nelson. It's taking half an hour just to upload a 90 second video of me annoying the brown bear above!

About 130km from our goal, Megan reported over the Radio that she was having problems with her bike. I had tightened the chain first thing, and it was now making a crunching noise when riding at low speed. we pulled over and I took the bike for a test ride, and couldn't find anything wrong. so we continued on.

We rode through more more valleys, around peaks and over rivers before descending into pasture and rural farming areas, and arriving at Fort Nelson.

First thing I did was take Megan's bike for a spin. At low speed I could finally hear the problem she was reporting. I need to adjust the chain properly, but I didn't have a socket to fit the back axle nut. After finding a hardware store on the Motel Wifi, I went there and couldn't find one, and they recommended I go to a tool supply company on the other side of the main road.

It was a Friday afternoon and a 1/4 to 5.

I raced over there, explained the issue to the guy behind the desk - who then took me next door and asked the guy there if he could adjust the chain Free of Charge. Turned out it was a bike shop next door and the two were friends.

Happy days! they adjusted and oiled the chain for free, and I rode back with the issue hopefully solved. subject to Megan's approval. She says she can still hear the noise it was making as I rode it round and round the carpark - but we'll see tomorrow if the fix passes muster.

The crisis solved for the mean time - we found the local pub across the road and had a couple of pints to clear the roadworks dust from out throats - purely for medicinal reasons of course. :)

Tomorrow we are off to Dawson Creek and the end of the Alaska highway. I'm a bit sad about that. I think I could ride the Alaska highway for the rest of my life and not be disappointed.

Lunch Stop at an amazing Log cabin Lodge right on the edge of a Lake complete with a Sea Plane Dock.

Stopping to put on our rain gear AGAIN!

Our first rest stop 200km in, at a little Log cabin