Category Archives: national park

bikes, Canada, family, friends, MTB, national park, roadtrip, snow, travel, USA

A little on the late side

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So, I never quite made the time to compose a Christmas letter. This will have to do as some sort of missive for me to sum up the year & wish you all happy holidays. 2011 was separated into distinct thirds for me. The first of those was the end of my year living & working in the Canadian Rockies. That spur of the moment decision to go & bike & ski in the mountains for twelve months still rates as one of the best of my life – I had a great time with fantastic friends; the snow was good too & my skiing could do nothing but improve with all those consecutive weekends on the hill.

The middle of the year – the end of a long winter & the first of summer – saw the completion of a long held dream. That was, a roadtrip around the West (USA) with a bike in the trunk/boot visiting many of the famous riding spots & national parks. My aunt, Valerie, joined me from Australia & we managed 22000 km (almost 14000 miles), 13 states & 2 provinces and an awful lot of quality mountain-biking (for me). Scenically, the highlights were Bryce Canyon & Crater Lake National Parks. As always when I visit the States, spending time with old friends & making new ones stays on top of the many memories.

Naturally, it was tough to leave close friends & the beauty of the Bow Valley; the last part of the year sees me finally starting to get around to what I left home for two and a half years ago. That is, to get a job & settle in the UK for a while and take full advantage of the proximity to Europe. I’m back process engineering for the first time in four years at a small rubber factory on the edge of the New Forest (not far from Southampton at the south of England). Mum’s been over here for the last three months at university, so it’s been great to see her every so often. The hospitality of extended family (some of whom I’m still only meeting now) helps to lessen the distance from home – as does Skype & 1p/min phone calls.

That’s this year – 2012 will not be nearly as well planned out or active for that matter. I’m down to have surgery sometime on my shoulder (to tighten it all up – two dislocations this year), so that will curtail the biking & skiing a lot. That will just mean I have more free time to explore this part of the world. I’ve finally got an invite to a wedding (first since leaving), so I’ll be back in NZ for a couple of weeks near the start of September for what will be a flurry of visiting much-missed family & friends.

Best wishes for the new year.

bikes, Canada, friends, MTB, national park

Being Lake touristy

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Exhausted from Sunday’s big ride, we had a late start before I took Brent & Emma up to see Lake Louise & Moraine Lake. We blew past the park gates at the busiest I’ve seen them for a long time (twas Monday too) & of course when we got to the lake it was insanely busy. But never mind, we found a sneaky parking spot & went to gaze at the beautiful lake for a while, feeling wonderfully lazy. There was considerably less ice than early May in the lake – in fact, there was actually water in the liquid phase, brilliant.

If we hadn’t have been so sore & tired, I would have been pushing for the nice little ride to Moraine Lake – you actually earn the view, instead of just driving there. As it was, we drove & there were less people there than at Lake Louise. The lake was a lot higher than last time I visited in the fall – all the logs at the outlet were floating. Brent tried valiantly for quite a while to cross them, but in the end he was too big to not sink. Emma managed to get a very wet foot trapped under a log or two for a while. The frivolity over we wandered up the lookout point.

A cruisy drive back down the parkway home – we saw a couple of huge-antlered elk.

Tuesday morning we were in a fit state to ride, but as Emma & Brent had to hit the road south I opted to show them the rocky & rooty technatality of the Nordic Center. With a bit of the Yellow Loop, a little bit of “Brendan getting slightly lost” & then some of the Orange Loop across the meadows & down we came to the Coal Chutes intersection. Brent persuaded us to go down the black run. I’d forgotten just how much fun it is – a little steep, but on the smooth & non-grippy coal surface I was just on the right side of the edge of control & it was a blast. With the nice Georgetown climb, a bit more of the Orange Loop (Orchid) & a little more toiling up hill we were back at the day-lodge after watching little kids with guns (not something you want to come across on your MTB ride) at the biathlon range. The usual fun down the berms, table-tops & doubles on Soft Yoghurt & then down Devonian Drop & along the loose gravel beside the hydro facility & our nice little jaunt was over. Sad to see my Kiwi accented visitors leave, but I’m sure I’ll hear some Kiwis in whatever is left of London next week.

bikes, Canada, city, family, friends, hiking, MTB, national park, roadtrip, travel, USA, vehicles

Back to Canmore – Roadtrip Complete

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To finish off the three months of driving I decided to drive all the way back from Vancouver to Canmore in the middle of the long weekend. The logic there being that Jasper would be a zoo on a sunny holiday weekend & I’d be better off checking it out a little later when there were less people around.

So Saturday morning I set off on a wonderfully sunny drive east across BC. The traffic was pretty good & BC was beautifully forested – it really is a large province when you drive across the bottom in one day. After Kamloops I was back on roads I’d driven before & there was a half-hour wait near Shuswap – but I had the Kindle out so I wasn’t too fussed. Over Rogers Pass & coming into Golden there was an ominous big cloud of black smoke billowing into the sky. I was near the front of a queue for almost an hour as some poor family watched their RV incinerate. The rest of the drive was uneventful & I was soon driving below familiar peaks – just they had a lot less snow (almost none) on them than I remember. It was a little odd getting closer to Canmore – being away for three months & doing so many other things must have lessened the blow of leaving such a great place as I wasn’t too concerned that I’ll be gone in three weeks.

So that was it really, just under 22000 km, 87 days, 13 states, two provinces, 45 MTB rides totalling a thousand kilometres, at least 15 National Parks & 5 National Monuments, only 2600 photos & 435 gallons of gas. What a great trip! We were blessed by the weather – notably it never got really hot, as it did the last time I visited Utah, Nevada, Arizona & California in 2009.  Highlights are hard to list as there were so many. But I’ll try anyway:

A separate list for the riding highlights, which is even harder as I rode so much quality singletrack.

That’s that – thanks again Valerie for coming along for the ride & sharing the experience (& financing a lot of it too!).  I’m in Canmore until mid-August before flying back to London to catch the last of the English summer.  Mum’s coming across to England for the last few months of the year, so it’ll be great to see her & plenty of other friends & family in the UK.  From then on, I only have vague ideas as to what I’m going to do with myself… But riding better figure in there somehow.

bikes, GPS, MTB, national park, roadtrip, travel, USA

Crater Lake National Park & first Bend ride

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Back on the national park trail we left Medford & headed north towards Crater Lake. Driving through a few small towns there were a few extra flags out lining the main streets & many firework stalls as well – as you’d expect on July 4. More scenic driving continued along rivers (the Rogue – another great name) & beside forests – a brief interlude was stopping to see a natural bridge. This one was a little different to the ones we had grown used to in Utah – made out of an old lava tube. The outer of the flowing lava cooled & solidified while the molten lava kept flowing, leaving a tube that the river now runs through since the lava has long since stopped running. With the river running so high, the river didn’t disappear completely (all that water couldn’t fit down the tube) – but you could see where the water was coming out of the tube with quite some force. A different interesting little diversion.

River exiting the tube

Ordinarily, the river would flow completely underground here

We hit the snow line at about 1500m as we continued towards Crater Lake. It got thicker & thicker & at the Visitor Center, it was two to three metres high in parts. With an above average 16m of snowfall last winter & a late spring, it was still very white & only one hiking trail was open (& that only for the long weekend). Crater Lake is actually in a caldera of an old volacano that collapsed on itself. I was expecting the lake to be beautiful, but this was something else – perhaps the most jaw-droppingly amazing thing we’ve seen yet on our little drive. With water only entering the lake as rain or snow & no rivers or streams exiting the caldera, the water is brilliantly blue. With the shelter of the caldera rim as well, there was no wind to cause even a ripple on the surface. Add to that the clear sunny day & the snow around the rim – the sum was something fantastic. Here are a few pictures – more here.

With a bit more driving on Valerie’s part we eventually got to Bend late afternoon. After settling in to the motel, I couldn’t resist getting straight out & hitting a trail in what is one of the top MTB towns in the States. As it was getting late & there were fireworks to go to later, I found the Mrazek trail on Garmin Connect. It was close to town & as an out-and-back I could make it last as long as I wanted – fitted the bill nicely.

It was a great introduction & a lot of fun. Mostly a (very) gentle climb on a nice wide dirt trail (bit of a shock to be back riding in dust after the previous snowy rides!). There was one section that had a few switchbacks that were markedly steeper & there were some technical rocky step-ups to negotiate; but I dug deep into the recesses of my riding brain & remembered all I’d learnt in Colorado & Utah & cleared them all. I continued steaming up the trail in a high gear until I figured I had better turn around at seven o’clock.

As I expected all the way up, going down was neat. I don’t think I realised how twisty it was as I was climbing, but I quickly found that I couldn’t go as fast as I’d imagined I would. Still, not having to pedal as much is always good; although I did spend quite a bit of time in the big chainring – it’s not often that happens for me on singletrack. My short little evening ride turned out to be 24km – but it didn’t take long, so there was enough time to get home, shower, grab a meal & then find a good place to watch the July 4 fireworks.

Launched from a small hill just east of the center of town, the show didn’t start until ten o’clock. After a rather monotonous first five minutes (it wasn’t bad, just all the same sort of firework), a bit of variety was finally introduced & it turned out to be a really good display. At over twenty minutes, it was also quite long for a Bend-sized town. Finishing with a flourish it was well worth having headed out to see them – plus we got to sift around various street parties with fireworks going off all over the place.