Day 13 & Day 14 Creston to Fernie for Our 2nd Rest Day

Day 13... FRIDAY! Cranbrook to Fernie

(Danica) And our Friday too! Off we set in the morning with the hopes of a hot tub and a rest day! We quickly realized in the morning how we failed on Kelly bike repair... found a little nail that had now killed two tubes. We pedaled out of Cranbrook on what I would say was our easiest riding day... 97km all of flat terrain. Our day became GREAT when we stopped for lunch at a café in a town of 12 ppl (Jarrrey) and got desert to go along with our sandwiches. Our day then became AWESOME when we stopped at the general store in Elko (a town of 153ppl). It was a store with CHAINSAWS! FIREWORKS! BEER! GROCERIES! GAS! Oh my goodness I was in heaven! Our day then somehow developed into an EPIC one when we saw a heard of about 10 Mountain Goats just before the "weather tunnel." Kelly has now seen it all and is satisfied with the trip! Haha or at least that's what she said. They just were hanging at the side of the road eating leaves and chillin'. So amazing to stop and watch, whereas the vehicles just whizzed by not noticing. Then we went through the Weather Tunnel - basically locals say most days the weather is black vs white on the other side. Bizarre but just as sunny for us! We arrived into Fernie and were greeted by the happiest German - Veronika! Yeah she needed a day off and took a taxi ahead of us. We all then had a great evening of eating pizza, drinking (not water, powerade or protein powder) and hot tubbing!

Day 14: Rest Day in Fernie

(Veronika) As we decided last night to go wildwater rafting we all got up super stoked! A quick breakfast for us with egg, hashbrowns and of course Nuttela.
Properly feed we jumped on the rafting bus and they told us we would go up to the Bull River as the Elk is right now too dangerous.
Finally after almost an hour drive we reached our spot where we started. All of us got their wetsuits, wetsocks, lifejacket, helmet and spray jacket. This wetsuit zipper went down all the way underneath our bellybutton, we looked smoking hot! Some of us got sneakers provided by the raft company and after a short safety lesson we jumped in the raftboats. Luckily us girls got the most handsome guide, Paul. You should have seen Cate, she was totally into him and actually we all were.
We had a fun time on the water, Danica and me started out in the back, so nice and relaxing and after lunch we mixed it up, so everyone got a chance to sit in the front.
Today we had to make 2 sacrifices, our Collins girls said goodbye and fell off the boat. I almost fell down as well but luckily my foot grab saved me from falling right in the water. Thanks to Paul and Danica we were all saved, just a little shocked afterwards.
At the end we got out of the boat all happy and wet down to our bathing suits, we helped to carry up the boat and put it on the trailer. But we didn't want to end the day without a picture of us and our cute guide Paul. Thanks Canon Raft Company!
On the bus ride home we felt how exhausting a couple hours in the water are and fell asleep.
But now it's dinner time and afterwards maybe hot tub and pub time :)

And tomorrow finally the last day in BC! First province is almost done!!!!!!

Ha Ha Creek Rd - Cates actually made us all laugh for this photo!

Jarrrey lunch!

 

 

After lunch deadness... whoops to many brownies

 

Finally found someone to build a bridge!

 

The Most Amazing Store of life in Elko!

Mountain Goats!

Weather Tunnel!

 

Woot! First Tunnel!

 

 

Fernie! Alberta... BC is almost done!

 

Finally drink time!

Excited for Rafting!

On the School Bus!

Woo... Busing it!

Before the adventure.. suited up!

Going CRRAAZZZZY with Paul!

 

Pauls pretty face!

 

 

Laura and Kelly asleep...

Day 12: Creston to Cranbrook. 118 km. Beer for Breakfast.

(Cate) We strategically camped directly across from the Kokanee Brewery in Creston. We were at the door as the brewery opened and began our day with free beer (seems to be a running theme). After a brief stay, we began our ride to Cranbrook. We surpassed the 1000 km mark early on which was exciting! After 35 km, we took a break for lunch and made sure everyone was on the same page to get to Fernie by Friday. Laura and Veronika hitchhiked into Cranbrook shortly after lunch feigning a breakdown. People are surprisingly sympathetic when we are stranded in the middle of nowhere on bicycles. Turns out the gentleman who drove them in knew a lot about bikes and delivered them to a bike store where Laura got some needed tune-ups done to her bike. Today we successfully completed our very first time zone and crossed into Mountain time. Later on in the ride, an elk began to run rapidly next to the highway and then jumped in front of us. Danica had to furiously wave down a van which nearly missed hitting the elk. What a savior. A couple kilometers down, our hearts still pumping fast from the near miss, Kelly got her first flat. Something went wrong with the repair and we had to pump up her tire every 5 or 10 km until the campsite. Cranbrook was very windy; fortunately the tail wind made the longer ride a lot easier. Our tents were literally blowing away as we set them up and attempted to dry them out after days of rain. 

After Laura succumbed to the pressures of the verryyy long stretches of highway without any bathrooms, we have officially all 'free peed.' Honestly, I have no idea how she made it through the first 11 days without such an incident. 

Outside the Kokanee brewery. 

Entering into the Mountain Time zone. 

Beautiful Moyie Lake. 

Attempting to fix Kelly's flat. 

Bike shadows as the sun was falling. 

Entering Cranbrook. 

Sign selfies, a must! 

Day 11 !! Crawford bay to Creston

I(Veronika) What a good alarm for waking up... Rain drops on the tent, but let's roll over again and sleep the 1,5hrs more until 6.30 am. And as I got up, I was greeted by 2 deers. 

At breakfast we had our first real team talk and after that we were ready to hit the road again. 

Today we went on a beautiful ride along the kootney lake, in my opinion so far the most beautiful ride. However the shoulders of the street weren't there or unrecognizable, luckily there was almost no traffic at all. I wasn't lucky at all to hitch hike, too bad so I went all the way.

Riding along highway number 3a was nice and quiet until it had to start raining... So all of us put on their good looking rainwear (pants, booties, jacket, gloves and for me a cover for my helmet). We never took off the rainwear, not for lunch where a nice lady of a motel offered us to eat in a rondel safe from the rain. And as we hit creston (murderous hill to get up here) we didn't mind wearing it to the local pub. We were like celebs in there, as everyone thought it was crazy enough to bike all across canada, we even got a round of free beer (thank you man without a name). 

Now it's time for bed because we wanna try to hit cranbrook tomorrow, which means a day with over a 100 km.

Leaving camp in Crawford bay

Crawford Bay sign

Kootney Lake

RAIN!

Sketchy lunch location

Veronika making sure we are not lost. 

Day 9 was a TREAT!

Today we woke up to a dry morning after surviving a wet night.  Leaving Christina Lake you start your initial climb up the Paulson pass. With a nice wide shoulder the initial start to your day isn’t too hard.  There is tons of wildlife through this pass, except we still hadn’t seen any mountain goats. We saw a black bear on one of our roadside stops but we quickly realized it was a baby black bear. Kelly got out of there like a bat out of hell and we quickly followed suit. Midway through the morning after contemplating hitch hiking several times, travelling up roads with no shoulders and lots of gravel, we finally reached the top at 1535 meters. After a quick victory dance and summit-selfies we packed on the layers, as there was still snow on the ground at the side of the road at the top, and started our decent. We could see the thunder clouds in the distance during our ascent and they’d finally started to pour by the time we were heading down. While everybody was suiting up in rain gear the park warden was nice enough to let us know that there were grizzly bears in the area. At this point it had begun to torrential downpour painful, buckets of hail. Between the grizzly infested forest and the horrible weather we made it down the mountain at about 50 km/h into Castlegar and found the first hotel with a hot tub. Later Danica let us know that not only had the park warden mentioned the grizzlies but that one had, just last year, chased him down on the very stretch of highway we were about to decent. After a long, miserable day it was really nice to relax in the hot tub and have a nice dinner out at Boston Pizza.

  

Rain Night Day 7!

(Danica) we are not fans of Cate tonight! She HAD to say on our morning ride today "well at least it hasn't rained yet" and what does it do... RAIN! I slugged her good for saying it too. It is pooring at our site at Christina Lake. We had a slow afternoon ride... Mabye due to the beer. We bought groceries here when a lady stopped (like everyone does) to get our story. She recommended us to go 10km down the road to a campsite when all of us together said no way too far. She flipped out replying "your going to st.johns and 10km is too far!!" Made us all smile again. We got to our camp site all giggling from over tiredness! Well got to go s'mores are ready on the FIRST CAMP FIRE!! 

Tent teepee and went tents. Thank TL for the tarp!

Collins girls watching the s'mores!!

Day 6 & 7 !! One week woot woot!!

(By Cate) Yesterday we set out early to tackle the renowned Anarchist mountain climb. The Wilkinsons piled the panniers of Laura, Kelly and Veronika into their car and met us most of the way up the summit to ease our ride. The ride was slow and long, but we made it up. We posed for a summit selfie and then coasted down to lunch at a pullout along the highway. One thing that kept us going were a series of deer signs which had added features. The first one we noticed had a penis and then there were a series with Rudolph noses. Only bikers going ~15 km/hr would have time to observe such features but we appreciated someone going to that effort. We quickly realized that we were not going to hit our goal of Grand Forks, so we settled for the night in Greenwood which was 40 km out. We were met at the somewhat creepy motel/campground by Dad and Sherri who prepared us a delicious steak and salad dinner! After a bit of socializing and hot showers, our spirits were up and we had an early night. 

This morning we reached another summit with relative ease, Eholt. In the morning we passed a bunch of baby llamas and sheep. Talking to animals on the side of the road provides endless entertainment! There was a race going on from Grand Forks to Kettle  River and back so we cheered many cyclists on as we rode. We really could've used the cheering as we were cold and moving really slow. So slowly that some of the cyclists passed us a second time before we even reached Grand Forks. A highlight was running into Trevor, a friends dad, who stopped to say high quickly before racing to catch up to his peloton (word of the day.) We coasted into GF and had lunch at the Station Pub for a mix of soups and beef dips to warm us up. And of course BEER! 

Our climb out of osoyoos!

Anarchist summit! Great feeling to be at the top.

Cate, Court & Trevor

Day 5! Princeton to Osoyoos! ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE KM'S

(By Cate!) This morning we woke up earlPriny because there was promise of dinner and family upon arrival in Osoyoos. Danica described the day as being mostly downhill all the way to Osoyoos. While this was true for the first 70 km, the terrain had two big climbs in store for us in the last 40 km. In the morning, we rode through Hedley which used to be a gold mine that was mined dry in 1955 after mining 47 million dollars worth of gold. After lunch in Keremeos, everyone was feeling pretty hot and tired. We bought some Gatorade and got back on the road. There was a pretty strong headwind blowing up the valley so we played leap frog  to take turns breaking the wind. We blew through the kilometers along the rolling hills next to the Similkameen river then we hit the climbs. We made it up to the top and then coasted down some steep decents into Osoyoos! Danica’s family was waiting to cheer us on and guide us to the campground. Mom had also rallied up a few crazy Aussies at the campground to welcome us in. Danica, Courtney, Kelly and I went for a dip in the lake and then we all had a wonderful spread of appies and dinner with our families. Mom gave us back massages to work out all of our sore spots before bed!l

Leaving Camp in Princeton

Biking in a line to fight the wind!

A sign in the West direction making us feel good about ourselves

A hill we accomplished before the 9 % downhill into Osoyoos... Cate clocked 66km/hr on it!

Just an update :) days 2,3,4

 

Blog Update Time!! Ok we are at the top of Manning Park typing up a bit of an update even though we have no service… OMG the last two days have been crazy. Lets try and explain some of it…

(Danica) Day 2: We HOPED to cycle to HOPE… and we did! With just the most major detour though Chilliwack. Kelly had a major chain malfunction and had to be picked up by my Dad, Mom and Sam. Veronika accompanied her to a bike shop in Mission while Cate, Court, Laura and I continued on. We decided we wouldn’t make it to Hope so we went to Sam’s Moms place in Chilliwack (only a 35km detour!). On the way we saw and biked with CLARA HUGHS!! She is on tour and was having a talk in Hope that night. So when we got to Sams Moms, we got promised a hot lunch and dinner, warm inside beds and a hottub…. THEN we checked our phones to see that Kelly and Veronika wanted to go to hope because they met the most amazing bike guru who has worked with Clara! And would fix up all of our bikes… Ahhhh dilemma and now we were moving to Hope, Hoping we would be there before dark, Hoping we would see Clara, Hoping we would get our bikes tuned, AND Hoping for bed. My parents were absolutely amazing as they went ahead into Hope to get us groceries for dinner and lunches, along with a campsite. Somehow after arriving we managed to shower, eat, and setup all in time to meet THE MOST AMAZING BIKE GURU BRUCE (If you’re ever in Mission and need a tune up, he’s your guy!!! Visit his website/bike shop: www.wentings.com, 33245 North Railway Ave. Mission BC) to get all bikes tuned up!

Heading out on day 2

 

 

The Post Office... you know which one.

 

 

Our day 2 break down, broken chain, initial repair.

 

Annnnnd waiting to be picked up once it was really broken.

 

 

Day 3: Yes we still had energy! And drive! And yes we were set out early to CLIMB up to Manning Park. Did you know there is a huge hill before a quaint little town of Sunshine Valley?! Well we found this out in the slowest climb of our lives when VERONIKA AND LAURA GOT A RIDE!?! They hitched! They found the nicest guy, Mark who took them and their bikes UP THE HILL! Veronika asked him “Are you going to Manning Park” He replied  “Nope Sunshine Valley” “Good Enough!!!” Then he came back to ask the rest of us if we wanted a ride! Haha! Cate, Court and I said no…. but Kelly jumped in like the forest was on fire! Long climb but not as steep as some hills in Kamloops. Just long. After arriving in Sunshine we got some water at the local store. They said anyone who’s biking that way can stay there for $10 with Hottubs, Pool, Wifi, ect.. for just ten bucks. Ahhh we turned that down and kept on trucking… uphill! Then about halfway up that hill (after a great lunch by the creek) us leading bikers (Cate/Court/Myself) saw ANOTHER TRUCK go by with three girls in it waving out the window… What lucky girls. A family friend of ours (through April) Dale Dyke picked them up and stopped to check on us. We sent them away and kept on going uphill… Climb on! After a long time we finally arrived at ALLISON PASS SUMMIT!!! Our first Summit! Manning Park was a short decent down where the ladies did an amazing job of setting up camp and making the best of worst dinner plans… beens, wieners, rice and old pasta. Add ranch sauce and it was perfect enough!

 

 

Mountain Queens!

 

Lunch Time Break!

 

 

Then back on the road

 

 

The Champions take their first summit!

 

 

 

I think after just three days of biking together we have now conversed in every awkward conversation, more than once! We also have had three breakdowns (well 2.5ish), one very cold skinny dip for showers tonight, two hitchhiking events, one random “whatever the store had” dinner, and meet one other guy going across Canada. Its been a long three days and we are all ready for an ‘easier’ day tomorrow. Everyone is in really great spirits tonight as a few of us got to the top of a summit, and a few others got some needed rest! Its feeling way more real to be on this trip as we now have no service, no clean cloths, and just enough food for breakfast.

Day 4

Well after a tiring day yesterday we’ve made it to Princeton with time to spare! After being told it was going to be an easier day of rolling hills we ended you summiting once again! This time Laura, Veronica, and I (Kelly) made it up as well. Our first team summit!!! There were a couple steep inclines (the 9% one right off the bat was a little daunting) but the grade of the hills because less beyond that one and we all made it to camp with plenty of energy! Cate and Courtney even volunteered to bike back into town for food and ice cream, thanks guys!!! All in all it was a good day AND we managed to have our daily mishap, Danica, right at the welcome to Princeton sign, got a flat. A quick tire change, a quick downhill, then lunch at the campsite. Overall a very good day. It’ll be a long day into Osoyoos but hopefully we’ll be powering through and have a great rest day on Friday!

WE DID IT!


Our Breakdown of Day 4!