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Into the Mountains

June 10th, 2013 | Posted by Dino in Canada | Uncategorized

Day 9: Enderby to Revelstoke (112 km)

Thunderstorms and cycling do not mix. The rain began to patter down on my tent as I stirred for breakfast. My mood was a gloomy as the low cloud when I checked the weather forecast to find thunder storms predicted for the 112km of cycling that way ahead.

Today I was cycling with the two Wanderers. These two had always turned up at the campground many hours later than I had on previous parts of the trip. But this was most certainly not because they cycled slower. They flew out the Enderby campground at a stonking pace (24km per hour!) and didn’t stop until 40km later.

Feeling slightly the worse for wear after yesterday’s revelries, when we stopped I collapsed on a coffee and cookies. We didn’t move from the comfy cookie-eating coffee-drinking position for over an hour.

With extra caffeine in me, I led the mini-peloton for the next 25km. It’s here that I joined the Trans-Canada highway for the first time on my trip. I smiled, knowing I would be following this road for more of less a month.

Then the heavens opened. The rain quickly soaked my windproof jacket and I could feel the water seeping slowly down the collar and into my socks. The wanderers both had waterproof covers for their shoes. With the threat of more rain in the next few days I vowed to buy the nicest, most waterproof pair I come across.

And yet it was glorious. For by now we were cycling into the mountains. Gone are the dusty, ochre-hued rocks of the Okanagan. Here the looming clouds cast shifting lines of darker green on the billowing, ascending pine forests. The mountains disappeared into puffs of white cloud. We cycled through noise and solitude. First the howling rumble of articulated trucks, zooming motorbikes, the earth-shaking rumble of a passing freight train and the lively, gushing creeks. Then the ceasing traffic noise would amplify the quiet sounds of cycling in the forest: the water trickling through the rocks, the wind in your ears, the slick watery hiss of your tyres on wet tarmac and one bodyless bird reciting melodies from above the forest.

Wandering into the Rockies

Wandering into the Rockies

The thunderstorm never materalised. Nor any hard climbs. With less than 2 miles to go Sofi Wanderer had a flat tyre easily fixed at the road side. But as we finally freewheeled our way to the campground the sky cleared and the snowy peaks of the Rockies were illuminated by the glowing evening sun.

Tomorrow it begins: the ascent of Rogers Pass and my route through the Rocky Mountains.

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