128 kilometers – Click for ride details

Last night was a warm cozy sleep. I still wore pants but only needed a shirt instead of a fleece and jacket. In the morning I was in the shade so I put my sleeping bag, tent and laundry in the sun on a spare picnic table. Oh yeah, I do laundry in the shower, well at least my bike shorts, shirt and socks and then dry it out the next day. I tested my new stove which worked well and boiled water for one of my pre-dried meals. The meal was horrible and I only ate half of it before storing for later (which I eventually through out). This makes pre-dried meals 50/50 so far.

Off on my journey I stopped at the airport for some reception so I could post yesterday’s blog then slogged up the epic climb out of Castlegar. The view for the first few kilometers is of the entire valley showing Castlegar intersecting the mighty Columbia and Kootney rivers. There is some serious flow in the blue green waters of the Kootney, what a site!

Back to the climb. This was some serious stuff and hit 6 – 7 % grades which for some sounds pretty domestic but those who bike know this requires some serious effort. I felt a little tired from yesterday and probably stopped 4 times just to recuperate. The forest is getting thicker and greener like before Princeton but the trees are not very large in comparison. I stopped at summit “Bombi” for a few pictures then started down where I had my second wipeout of the trip. I was just cresting the summit and looked back to watch the cars coming up the road so I could merge in safely. As I turned to look a veered into the gravel on the side of the road which is basically like quick sand. It devoured my front tire as I began to unclip and recover with a jump and run over the handle bars – what athleticism and stupidity within a mere second or two. No worse for wear I continued down to construction zone where I chatted with some motorcyclists while we waited for the lane to open. When it did the traffic lady let me go ahead with a gap so I hammered off. I hit some serious speed and I had a vice like grip in the drop bars out of fear of catastrophe. It got pretty gusty in their and after the construction zone I slowed it right down to be safe.

I rode into the town of Salmo for lunch and to charge my phone and tablet. My solar panel charger is not working too well and I don’t want to lose power anywhere. I stopped in the Dragonfly cafe for a fabulous lunch and realized a new routine for my travels to facilitate better posts: take a longer lunch and write half the post then while charger my stuff – brilliant I tell you. You see this is not something you can plan for – no comments on this please!

Salmo is quite a small town and once leaving the main drag you are back out onto the highway with maybe a house or two. You follow a slow moving river South down the valley which begins to narrow eventually although the mountainsides are a little smaller here but definitely covered with a good layer of forest. The side of the road is covered with lush light green grass and there is very little traffic at this time of day leading to a very serene experience until you reach the turn of for the US border. Shortly after the turn off is the following sign: Kootney Pass summit elevation 1774 meters.

Then this sign…

If you check the ride you will see the elevation gains and the road ratings. All of that aside it was easily the hardest climb to date. Similar to the Paulston climb there is a build up where you are going slow but making okay time. Also similar to the Paulston climb is once in it it gets steep quickly however that is where the similarities end. The Kootney climb just gets steeper and steeper with no flat or downhill sections. This climb will grind you down physically an mentally.

Basically you are trudging up one side of a ridge of mountains so the view out to your right is huge forested mountains for many kilometers until they become snow covered peaks up above. This means you can pretty much see how far you need to go and it was demoralizing to say the least. At first I was stopping every kilometer or two to hydrate and rest. Closer to the top I would pick out markers 500 meters ahead, ride to them and crash on the side of the road until I felt motivated for the next one. I ate all of my chocolate, drank 95% of my water which I had completely refilled in Salmo and use up a lot of my emotional scars from Tibet to keep me going. Since it was later in the day the shadows appeared on parts of the road cooling down the ride significantly. There were also bursts of cold alpine winds which forced me to wear a jacket even though it was a beautiful cloudless sunny day. The rushing sound of the river below becomes the booming sounds of the run off from the snow near the top as well adding to the intensity of the climb.

The last few kilometers I rode from sun patch to sun patch to keep warm and as the mountain tops seemed to sink below me I knew I was close. I really had to make the summit soon if I wanted any chance of making Creston before darkness set in. Rounding the last corner all my troubles washed away as I saw a highway maintenance building and a cresting of the mountain followed by the summit marker. I was pretty elated even when I saw the sign for Creston: 50 kilometers.

I suited up for the long downhill ahead which included my gloves, bike hat, leggings and my trusty Stormtech jacket – did I mention how well this jacket works in hot and cold conditions?

The ride down was incredible and I hauled as since it was getting late. There is about 40 kilometers of downhill with on a few very small stretches where you need to pedal through. As with the climb there is serious grade so you need to be careful and I kept watching for traffic. As it starts to bottom out I could till carry the big ring and pedal to keep a fast pace.

At the end of the downhill you descend into flat area around Creston which is swampy with some farm land.

From there it is about 10km into town and I took the second hotel I found as I was tired and didn’t care. Since the restaurants were closed I ordered a large pizza and ate half of it. Today was epic but I think the coming days may prove even more challenging!