The shortcut (a.k.a. cheating a little)

Okay, it’s been a while since you’ve heard from me and this has been because I’ve been moving around quite a bit withonly sporadic access to (often dodgy) wifi. Last time I told you that I would be heading up to Hope and I did, but my plans changed a little since then.

Here I was in Vancouver, preparing  for my trip and buying some bear spray at MEC (a big outdoor store), when serendipitously I got to talking with a guy, named Peter, also going on a trip out of vancouver.I told him about my trip and when I was leaving and we were discussing my route, when he offered to give me and my bike a ride out of Vancouver all the way to Hope (saving me about 2 days of riding on very busy, ill suited highways). So I decided to take him up on his offer and “cheat” a little. (I mean, it’s not really cheating. I’m making the rules, I can change them, right?)

My ride aka the white steed.

My driver aka the guy crazy enough to take me and bike across british columbia

So we drove out to Hope, but apparently there really wasn’t that much there. To get onto the KVR trail that I wanted to take I still had to do a dangerous stretch of highway.Since it was still early in the afternoon Peter suggested driving a little further to Tulameen. We were promised that we could find a bed there, but unfortunately the guy at the visitor center was a bit too optimistic on that front. Turns out there is even less in Tulameen. The guy in the “restaurant” (which in Tulameen means a party tent behind a house with about 4 tables with red/white checkered tablecloths) told us that mostly people come to Tulameen on the weekend and that during the week everything is pretty much closed, including his restaurant. Luckily there is a provincial campsite by the lake in Tulameen. So I ended up doing my first night of camping by a lovely lake. After the long day of driving we even took al little swim in the lake. (it was VERY refreshing and as a result also very short 😉 )

I was also introduced to what appears to be the canadian camping meal of choice, the Smokey…

After Tulameen we headed towards Princeton and decided to plan the rest of our trips with the help of the local vistitors center, me still trying to get info on the KVR trail, Peter hoping to find some alpine hiking. Unfortunately the girl in the center told me the trail was in pretty bad shape due to the rain and ATV-riders, not really suited for my loaded bike. In addition there was some stormy weather coming and I would have to camp again. Peter got the advice to go hiking at Mount Robson near Jasper. Being the kind and generous soul that he is, Peter offered again to take me and my bike along on his road trip (8 hours north this time). While at this point I did hesitate, since I had been putting my departure of for several days now, I did decide to ride with him one more time.

So I reversed my original route and instead of going from Banff to Jasper, I decided to do the icefields parkway in the opposite direction. This allowed me to escape a stormy night of camping and a long, boring stretch of cycling across the highway between Kamloops and Jasper. It also put me ahead of shedule by more than a week. So now I can take a bit more time to relax between rides and explore my resting places a bit better.

Some views from my road trip with Peter.

At the end of the day we ended up on the Mount Robson provincial campsite with another cosy campfire and smokey-wrap diner to set me on my way the next morning. Thank you again Peter for the ride, the company, the coffee, the smokeys and just being an amazing guy. Not only did you save a lot of cycling, but you made the start of my trip a lot more enjoyable.

Of course our  roads had to part at some point (and we managed to prolong our time together quite a bit) and so I (finally) set of on my bike. The first stretch Mt Robson to Jasper…

Mount Robson in the morning

The road ahead…