August 31st, 2009
Today, I was up early to the sight of another fantastic day weather-wise. So far, the weather has been nothing short of fantastic. I rode my bike up the Sunwapta Pass to the Columbian Icefields. A challenging hill I believe is the polite terminology. I did treat myself to a few stops along the way - to take photographs you understand and not to rest. Actually, Tom said he didn't have to wait that long at the top for me...but maybe he was just being kind.
The two of us cooked lunch just by the Athabasca Glacier part of the Columbia Icefileds (lunch, this time, was pasta and Ragu...with sardines instead of tuna...variety, you see).
We took a walk up to the icefield, which was pretty impressive. I tried desperately to remember my GCSE geography on how glaciers work, but the grey matter wasn't doing its job. I think we were stood on terminal moraine though, looking at the glacier. There were lots of signs telling you not to go on the glacier -- one of them said something like, "While our guides are well trained in glacier rescue, on the last 3 attempts they have been unsuccessful." The signs worked for me...
The rest of the ride was supposedly all down hill. Yeah right! The first thing we came across was another climb to the top of the Sunwapta Canyon. I have learned that you can never believe what anyone says when it comes to hills or distances, particularly when they are a non cyclist.
Along the way to Jasper, I stopped to help one man change his car tyre. Unfortunately, Tom didn't hear me yelling to stop and continued cycling on and had to wait for ages at the next rest stop for me to finally catch up.
The rest of the day's ride was long - over 90 miles for the day, and I really started to bonk towards the end (not that kind of bonk, but the cyclist-getting-knackered kind of bonk). Tom on the other hand was on fire, so a bit of drafting seemed to do the trick. We saw a mountain goat though and passed an impressive rockfall. And as we arrived in Jasper just after dark, we were treated to seeing elk crossing the road.
We a had a bargain meal ($6 Burger & chips) washed down with a pint of Traditional (which tasted like an exceptionally good ale, but I'm not 100% sure if this was in fact the case or if even a Bud Light would have tasted just as good on such an occasion).
At the end of the long day, I set up camp and said my farewells to Tom. He was off early, cycling to Prince Rupert with an average of over 200km a day. I initially had vague thoughts of joining him, but fortunately, for once, sense prevailed.
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