Crossing Canada

Canadian Rockies

Wednesday 17th July

I’m writing this from the terrace of an incredibly upmarket lodge about 50 km to the east of Jasper. It’s stupendous, if a bit rich for the nature of our travels. We have had a wonderful few days. It is also the day that now six of us reconvened after a few days of doing our own things.

I knew the landscape would change, but what a dramatic change it was! The sight of mountains in the distance makes the heart soar. I can’t claim any roots in mountain life, but maybe our past association with the Alps has ingrained them in my soul – it feels like home.

Inadvertently the timing of our arrival in Calgary, where we were joined by Val and Kerry had coincided with the Calgary Stampede, a week-long festival of rodeo and other activities and entertainments based on the cowboy heritage. It was not our intention to involve ourselves with this, while it would undoubtedly be interesting and fun, we had other fish to fry. However, it is a huge event and people come from all over Canada to enjoy the spectacle which meant that accommodation was hard to find and ludicrously expensive but we eventually managed.

The next day, a Sunday, while Al headed off on his own to camp for a couple of days, Val and I rode through Banff, which looked busy, chic and expensive, and south to Radium Hot Springs to join Chris. The ride starts due west, the mountains in the distance getting closer all the time. We were genuinely excited. Turning off the TCH to the south, the road starts to climb and entered the Kamloops National Park. Scenery assured! A sign on the road says Next Gas 107 km. I look at the range left on my bike – it says we have fuel for 107 km. I wasn’t really concerned, this is a beautiful road and we took it steady, arriving in Raduim Hot Springs with 3 km to spare. I suspect however that we probably could have gone another 40 km or so before running out of fuel, but I wasn’t keen to test that theory with Val on the back seat.

In the course of my previous long ride in these parts, I was riding south from Alaska and took a similar route in this bit – I recall having found accommodation in Banff and Lake Louise to be unaffordable, riding on to Radium Hot Springs for the night. My recollections are hazy, I think we arrived late and left early on that occasion. This time though, we arrived in time to catch the second half of the Euros final (disappointing result but I think we can be proud of England’s achievements under Gareth Southgate), following which a visit to the Hot Springs was a must.

After an evening with Chris and Kerry, our next stop was an out of season ski resort called Kicking Horse. The road going due north from Radium HS follows the Columbia River valley as it descends through the Bugaboo mountains. I knew the Columbia River from when we lived in Seattle 30 years ago; it passes through eastern Washington state and is dammed at the Grand Coolee dam before reaching the Pacific Ocean in Oregon. It was a huge surprise to find it so far north, close to its source.

This is heaven – I have heard of the Kamloops and Bugaboos talked about with reverence as meccas for powder skiing for many years. Very few actual resorts but lots of touring and heli-skiing opportunities, for those with deep enough pockets. Our destination was Kicking Horse, up a side road from Golden. This too is becoming a legendary skiing venue, a relatively new resort allowing access to much of the same terrain for which the Bugaboos have become famous.

On the way up towards Golden is the Lower Bugaboo waterfall, and trail leading to it. The trail head lies a few km up a gravel road, which was fun in itself. Parking the bike at the trail head, donning shorts and sandals and locking our bike gear to the bike, we enjoyed a short 2 km hike to the waterfall, surrounded by and occasionally pushing through clouds of mosquitos and midges. The waterfall was dramatic, as expected, and turned out to be just the first of a series of falls that we would visit over the next few days.

Needing a place to stay while Al and Dave did what they needed to, we had booked rooms in an out of season ski lodge in Kicking Horse. I was keen to see this place as a friend had bought a plot of land there (now sold, unfortunately) and another colleague had bough a condo. We arrived in the early afternoon, and after a late lunch started hiking up the slope. It was still very hot, and after about 45 minutes we arrived at a place where a few people were obviously looking at something interesting. And so we met Boo, the bear. Boo is a grizzly who was rescued as a cub, his mother having been shot. He has lived for the 23 years of his life in an enclosure within the ski domain, being looked after by rangers.

Apparently he hibernates from November to mid-March in a man-made shelter, so you won’t see him if you go skiing there. He does however provide another income stream for the resort: on our walk up the hill there were frequent signs informing us that it was forbidden to hike to “Bear Lodge” and we were to turn back. We had no idea what Bear Lodge was so carried on. The only way the resort wants visitrs to see Boo is by taking a guide and chair lift ($53 CAD in the summer season) to the visitor centre. Nonetheless, I had a pleasant conversation with one of the rangers; we had had some good exercise, seen a huge grizzly close up and saved ourselves a fair bit of cash!

Leaving Kicking Horse the next day we were heading for the Icefields Parkway, a legendary road from Lake Louise to Jasper the road winding along a valley with walls of mountains on either side. On the way we stopped off at the Takakkaw Falls, the second highest waterfall in Canada at 380 metres. Apparently Takakkaw means “magnificent” in Cree, and certainly lives up to its name.

I had ridden down the Icefield Parkway before, in 2017. On that occasion I rode straight down with few stops. It was certainly stunning but due to its iconic status as one of the most beautiful roads in the world I was possibly a bit underwhelmed. So this time my expectations were in check – but were in fact surpassed by miles. It’s a wonderful road, stretching for 232 km. In times gone by, glaciers were in evidence everywhere but now they have sadly receded to the peaks. Even the Columbia Icefield is hundreds of metres from where it was 30 years ago.

Almost as soon as we entered the national park through which the Parkway runs, we came across a black bear in the ditch at the side of the road. Not the first sighting of the trip, but the closest so far. Stopping for a night at the Sunwapta Falls gave us an opportunity to explore a bit more of the area.

The Columbia glacier marks a watershed, north of this the extensive meltwater runs north forming the Athabasca River alongside the road. We got the measure of just how much water flows in this in our second day on the Parkway when we stopped at the immensely powerful Athabasca Falls, the fourth waterfall of our series.

The weather is hot. Up to 35 degrees today, it’s not too bad while riding but uncomfortable while stationary. Having reached the end of the Icefield Parkway by lunchtime, Val and I took a diversion to a slightly remote lake where we swam in the cold water under a blue sky and surrounded by magnificent mountains. Heavenly!

And from there to this very luxurious lodge. What could be better?