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.