Category Archives: bikepacking

bikepacking, bikes, Canada, friends, GPS, travel

Day Eleven: Nelson to Kimberley

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Blasting down the hills of Nelson early Sunday morning, we couldn’t really tell what the day was like – it was so shrouded in smoke even at that hour. We found a lovely and popular cafe while waiting for the grocery store to open, then stocked up on food. Leaving Nelson, we crossed the west arm of Kootenay Lake on BOB – the big orange bridge.

The sun trying to break through the haze.

Not making a lot of headway through the particulates.

Heading east for the ferry from Balfour across the lake proper, we had thirty kilometres or so to go to meet our preferred sailing at nine fifty. An undulating road beside the lake had us going at a steady pace, while trying not to let our respiratory systems get too irritated – we made it comfortably to scoot in front of the motor vehicles.

For a free ferry, it was much larger than I expected – fitting a surprising number of vehicles, large and small, on and finding room for two bikepackers too.

Disembarking, we let all the vehicles pass before attempting our first hill of the day. A mere hundred and fifty metres, it was hardly even a warm up for what was to come. Not that that preventing us stopping for a tasty food stop – it would be sometime before we saw a shop again that day.

Back on the BC Epic route for much of the day, it was eminently preferable to the horror of the (/a) rail trail near Salmo the previous day.  We left the lake at Gray Creek and headed up, up and up some more.

A gravel road in generally good condition, this consistent climb was just wonderful. Climbing fifteen hundred metres from the lake, it wound its way up with fewer switchbacks than I would have suspected. Even with wildfire smoke obscured vistas, it was a beautiful climb as we focused on less distant views. Averaging out at nine percent gradient, it didn’t seem too bad as we kept a steady pace – with frequent stops to snack or chat to the occupants of the occasional vehicle out exploring.

Up and up.

Slowly getting closer to the pass, which was under the left of that peak.

Three and a quarter hours later, having ridden seventeen kilometres, we were well pleased to crest the pass. I’m sure that’s one of the biggest climbs I’ve done on a bike – loaded or not. We may have celebrated with frozen burritos. After a bit of a rest at the top (a shade over 2000 m above sea level), the much anticipated descent was upon us. First impressions: it was cold. For the first time in the trip, all our layers went on – and still we had chilly digits.

Yet we had exorbitant amounts of fun hollering our way down the long hill. The surface was sublime; generally sound and smooth, there was enough variety to really encourage moving around on the bike, blasting around corners, and hitting enough bumps and rocks to get modest, but still exhilarating, amounts of air.

A.

Complete.

Blast.

We may have thoroughly enjoyed ourselves… Well, I certainly did!

Megan setting the dust flying behind her.

Occasionally we slowed and stopped to appreciate the beauty around us.

The valley widened and flattened out, the surface getting oddly sandy – but not too difficult to ride on. Speed helped!

Enjoying the last of the fantastic gravel excursion in the late-afternoon light/haze.

Getting close to being back on the seal, we were surprised to ride out of a fire closure – very good timing, the area wasn’t closed when we rode in. Unfortunately extensive wildfires ravaged the area surrounding Kimberley in the coming weeks. Suddenly, a bear! The second sighting of the trip. I say that like it was exciting, but thankfully nothing of note happened – it ambled across the road and took off up into the trees.

Back on the pavement, despite our biggest distance and climbing day by far in the trip, Megan had excessive energy left and put the hammer down all the way into Kimberley, some twenty or thirty kilometres. I struggled to keep up after such a long day; I’d blame the gearing on my bike, but even I’m not buying that. We found Katie’s place as the sky darkened (due to approaching night, not smoke) and, exhausted, gratefully accepted kind hospitality. Always nice to meet bikepackers, I especially enjoyed the NZ bikepacking chat.

This was by far our biggest day of the trip in distance, climbing and time – but probably not quite as tough as the extended hike-a-bike dropping down to Idaho in the heat. A great day and another one to remember.

bikepacking, bikes, Canada, friends, GPS, travel, USA

Day Ten: Back to Canada – Sullivan Lake to Nelson

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On the bikes by half-seven, we seemed to be slowly getting used to earlier starts – if only to try to avoid the heat. Generally flat, it was an easy beginning to the day through more woods.

This photo was supposed to be representative of the junk yards we saw throughout, but it’s in better condition and there are water-craft rather than expired snowmobiles.

It opened up a little eventually.

An easy, but unserviced, seventeen kilometre run north to the border was before us. But down a lot and slightly to the south was the town of Metaline Falls (and the promise of seeing waterfalls) and I was hardly going to turn down second-breakfast. Finding a nice little cut-through we were soon plunging down to the river. Thoroughly enjoying whizzing down a hundred and fifty metres of steep hill was tempered by the knowledge we’d have to climb back up with full stomachs.

Riding up the slight rise onto the main street, I was struck by the incongruity of a disturbingly-green church and a strangely-large-for-a-isolated-small-town apartment block.

A little research since has shown that Metaline Falls formerly had a very large cement plant for decades, and had difficulty housing the workers – hence the large apartment block. I found the history fascinating and I’m a little sorry I didn’t investigate further while there.

Also, a cement plant explains these large and multiple silos.

Early on Saturday morning, town was rather sleepy – and there only seemed to be one place for second breakfast. But it was delightfully quaint, and the food was plentiful. While I kept eating, Megan went off to the grocery store and met a fellow cycle tourist – his point of difference being he was towing kayak behind his bike on a little trailer!

Quaint, almost disturbingly so, cafe.

The power station that used to supply the cement works.

We never did find the falls of Metaline Falls, but well fed we were happy to head back up the hill (as far as one can be climbing back up a big hill) and head for the border. The climb wasn’t that bad and after the heat of the previous day, we found coping with anything less was pretty easy. Paralleling the river, but never really near, the quiet road to the border crossing was more or less flat. The US border station was a rather beautiful old house, but for some reason I didn’t have the confidence take a photo. Quickly we were let back into Canada, plunging down the Salmo River valley before very gradually following it upstream to Salmo itself.

Yip, still plenty of trees over this side of the border.

Salmo was pretty small, but there was plenty of food (an especially good bakery may have filled any spare space I had in my rear-bag) and a good park for napping in the shade while Megan explored a bit more.

Heading north for Nelson, we got on a rail trail immediately. It was the most heinous rail trail I’ve ever been on. Fine sand, all cut up by ATVs, we bailed promptly for the quiet highway – yes, it was so bad that we preferred a sealed, direct road. I determined that I would not ride the BC Epic 1000 (may be persuaded otherwise now the memory fades). After a few kilometres we had another go at the rail trail, it was OK for a while – then we escaped again as the surface deteriorated.

Turning off the highway for the settlement of Ymir, we did find some backroads for a little while. It seemed a good time to stop and admire the view of the river, and as we weren’t heading for the backcountry, eat some of the excessive amount of food we’d been collecting that day. Also, there was a shop – it seemed right to support them too.

Strangely, eating well too much, too quickly caught up with me and every pedal stroke up the long gradual climb was somewhere on the range from pronounced discomfort to pain and onto agony. Well, it can’t have been too bad – I could still pedal and keep going; it definitely wasn’t shoulder-dislocation pain. Plus, there was only thirty kilometres to go. I survived – but I was relieved to blast down the steep hill into Nelson, find a park and stretch out on soft grass in the shade.

The smoke was far denser back in British Columbia, so views afar weren’t fantastic; Nelson was definitely filled with interesting people and architecture but. Unfortunately, getting a bit ahead of things, I’d led us too far down the hill so we had to turn and climb to what seemed to one of the highest streets in all of Nelson. We made it to Darcy’s (a friend and former workmate of Megan’s) place high above the city (pity about the smoke) for a pleasant evening of food and friends.

bikepacking, bikes, friends, GPS, travel, USA

Day Nine: Panhandle CG to Sullivan Lake

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Away before seven o’clock, it was our earliest start yet. Knowing that the day was due to climb over 40ºC is a reasonable motivator for not faffing around. Only a mile from the campground we left the road running alongside the Pend Oreille, beginning a long gradual climb (it averaged out at one percent) up a wide valley floor. The gravel began soon as the day quickly warmed.

The post-dawn light was rather lovely, and in parts the trees gave way to a bit of grassland.

The lots of private property gradually thinned – not that they had led to any traffic, the place was wonderfully deserted. A few stagnant lakes came and went as we meandered by. Suddenly, our first bear sighting of the trip! Some hundred or so metres ahead it ambled across the road and disappeared into the forest. Giving it plenty of time to clear off, we stopped and admired the beauty around – and probably ate too, we were bikepacking after all.

The gravel became an unmaintained track – the best type, with grass growing down the centre. If it were possible, things became even more sparsely populated.

It was nice to have the trees crowding in and shading us; we were pretty sure the track would go through as indicated on the GPS… Things rapidly heating up over the next hour, we happened across a big patch of wild raspberries – definitely worth stopping for some relief from the heat shortly before hitting a sealed road.

Joining Sullivan Lake Road, we could have headed up to the lake easily. The only snag in that plan is that I wouldn’t have survived well on the food we had. Quickly losing the altitude we’d gained, we were soon crossing the river to reach the small town of Ione.

There was at least a fantastic red, grated bridge to cross. Looking down through the steel deck, which was mostly empty space, to the river far below was rather unnerving.

Resupply in a dated supermarket was sufficient, if not mostly forgettable. We did at least get to cross the river again.

Of course, we could have taken the direct road to the lake and climbed less than two hundred metres. But why do that when you can head deep into a national forest, try to navigate on roads that are nowhere near those marked on the GPS and climb an extra four hundred metres? It was going to be cooler at 1200 metres anyway, why wouldn’t we sweat all the way up there to find out?

Also, we hadn’t had our fill of tree-sighting for the day.

A good two and a half hours took us from the river to the summit with plenty of stops for rest and refilling. It was grand, a wonderful climb and so much the better for being on gravel with no traffic.

With all that effort, we did get to bomb down through four hundred metres of descent in half an hour. Brilliant.

Fortunately a youth group had checked out early – otherwise the two large campgrounds at the head of the lake would have been completely booked out. After thoroughly checking all the sites and finding few available, and resting in the shade, we set up camp and continued resting in the shade and in the cool of the lake.

While our shortest day of the trip after leaving Whitefish, the 41ºC really sucked a lot of energy and the afternoon off recovering was much needed.

The two campgrounds were only two because there was an airstrip bisecting them.

And the planes had tents next to them, it was completely adorable.

bikepacking, bikes, friends, GPS, travel, USA

Day Eight: Sandpoint to Panhandle CG

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Another searing day forecast, our plan for the day was to generally follow the Pend Oreille River upstream, but try at least to escape the busiest roads for some quiet gravel roads in the hills. Finding the cycle paths out of town, we crossed the third incarnation of Long Bridge – at two miles long, it certainly was that. The highway is now on the fourth Long Bridge, so the one we were on was foot and bicycle traffic only.

Osprey sightings were common on the trip, usually seen in and around large nests on pallets that had been attached to the top of tall poles. Just after the bridge, I finally got to see an actual eagle (I’d taken to claiming any sufficiently large bird was such). But this was a bit different: the eagle had taken over the nest, and the poor displaced osprey was desperately trying to evict the invader. Despite much noise and many spirited swoops at the eagle while we watched, it was all in vain.

Not even an hour into the day’s ride is none too early to take full advantage of an extraordinarily good German Bakery. Eating far too much for that hour, there were still plenty of treats to try to find space for on our bikes.

The cycle path ended and we were dumped on a highway again. Startlingly, while having plenty of traffic and a noisy railroad on the other side, this one had a very wide shoulder, courteous traffic and a silky smooth surface; for a highway, it was pretty good. It didn’t last long as we cut west for the river on quieter roads. A rural area, we were once again struck with how much nicer it is to cycle on Idaho roads compared to those in many other places – most drivers gave us the whole lane when they passed. I’ve since found out about the Idaho Stop law – cyclists get to treat red lights as stop signs, and stop signs as yield signs; brilliant.

Not bothering to cross the river to Priest River, further attempts to stay on quieter roads ensued. With some success – we struck another gated community; but there were trails in the woods, not to mention shade. A short hike-a-bike later we were back on track and heading for the Washington border. Through Oldtown we crossed the border and sought respite from the midday sun lying and lunching on shaded grass in a central park (also here) in Newport (someone really was scratching the bottom of the barrel for place names here).

Heading out of town, we chose the quiet road away from the river – our first steep climb of the day. People stopped to ask for directions (surely we didn’t look local) and to offer help (we may have paused in some more shade) as we toiled toward Bead Lake.

Once again surrounded by private property, this was as close as we got – one lot early enough in the building process to have a clear view.

Then this happened, and there was much rejoicing.

Chief-namer of landmarks struck again with No Name Lake; mid-afternoon and we hadn’t really climbed that  much yet – it was still stinking hot. The walking track down to the lake was steep and just mostly-rideable. There was a pretty large group out swimming and playing around on various inflatables, their voices and laughs echoing around. (Overheard line of the trip rang out around the lake as one of the group loudly proclaimed “Bitch, calm down, I just got on a floaty”.) It was lovely to cool off in the water; although, we really should have left our bikes nearer the top of the track – it was a tough push back to the road.

Not a bad spot for a mid-afternoon dip on a scorching day.

Bead Lake Rd turned into Cook Lake Rd, narrowing and becoming more remote as we went. Contemplating camping at Cook Lake, it was decided against as there was still plenty of daylight left and the lake was rather manky.

The high point of the day was reached and we started to race downhill, the air rushing past a welcome respite. The track marked on the map that would point us on a more direct, but hillier, route didn’t eventuate. Route pondering continued.

Instead we had prevening snacks with these bears; they were guarding yet more huckleberries – but not well enough to keep me away from them.

A hundred kilometres, ten hours and a hundred degrees (Fahrenheit) having been surpassed for the day and nearing the river it was time to decide: down to and along the river to a campsite we knew was there (but not exactly what facilities it provided) or into the hills.

Early evening starting to cool ever so slightly.

I must have been getting tired from the heat, as we chose the lower option. Twenty-five kilometres left, the pace picked up a bit along a deserted wide, sealed road. Still not knowing what we’d find at Panhandle Campground, we stopped at a rushing stream to fill up with water – this would also make a good back-up campsite. As it was, Panhandle was right next to the river and itself a well-serviced and popular place. Pretty exhausted from the unrelenting heat, the wide Pend Oreille River washed off more of the day’s sweat before dinner was cooked, devoured and rampant mosquitoes avoided as best we could – mostly by collapsing into our bivy bags.