Day 8 – Happy 4th of July (Character Building)

Today started in the rain, and it did not stop until well into the afternoon. Before heading west, I told myself that on days when it was raining, rather than whine, I would view them as character building - today was a character building day!

We started the day with a 2,300’ climb over 21 miles crossing the Columbia Mountain range through Rogers’ pass. It rained all the way up and was 44°F at the summit. I would have some great pictures of the wisps of clouds in the mountains, but I left my SD card in my computer this morning.

Luckily Serge was in a photographic mood so I have some good shots to include. We knew on the way up to the summit that we were in for a cold wet day, as we could see snow when looking to our sides.

At the top of Rogers Pass we stopped for a hot chocolate before the long fast descent. We dropped 1,600 feet in nine miles and it was the fastest 9 miles I have ever ridden. The road had been freshly paved so the riding was quite smooth.







 

We saw a young buck and doe alongside the road today, so that puts the wildlife count so far at 5 deer, and one eagle.

On the descent into Golden, Serge made a rather appropriate comment given the weather of the last two days… “This area must be really nice in the sunshine.”

The cue sheets are always somewhat of an interpretive challenge, and today was no exception, but we managed to find the campsite nonetheless. Traffic was pretty busy along the TransCanada today as everyone was heading home from the holiday weekend.

The gear truck is parked about ½ mile from where we are allowed to pitch our tents, so it was a long schlep – I am convinced that this is a way to get us to send stuff home that we might not use.  In the camping area, we managed to get to the corner the furthest away from our allotted sites, and someone offered us the opportunity to dump our gear in his pickup truck and ferry us to the site. Yet another example of the great folks we are meeting along the way.

The meals have been very good, especially given the fact that we are cooking for ourselves. The galley crew gets assigned a recipe to cook for both dinner and breakfast the following morning, and we seem to be devouring it.

Tomorrow is a much needed rest day for laundry and a chance to give our quads a break before climbing up and over the Kicking Horse Pass, our highest point in the tour.