Jasper/Banff

We loaded up the bikes at 8:00am and it had just rained wetting down my bike but wasn’t raining when we left.  It looked like it could start raining any minute but the morning ended up staying dry.  It took about an hour to reach the Jasper park entrance and to our surprise it was only $10CAD each to enter.  The first stop was a pretty impressive river flowing through a slot canyon creating an impressive waterfall.  Then it was the famous Icefields Parkway and massive glaciers flowing over the mountains.  This road through Jasper reminds me of the ride through Torries del Paines in Chile – but much longer.  Beautiful snow-capped mountains and aqua blue glacial rivers flowing along the roadside.  Pretty amazing.

We stopped at Lake Louise and Lake Moraine in Banff and both were also amazing.  I definitely prefer Lake Moraine as it is a bit more low-key and much less tourist there.  Both lakes had lots of activity in the form of kayakers and stand up paddle boarders cruising around the lakes.  I think I need to come back to this area someday and explore a bit more.

We left Lake Louise for Golden and almost instantly hit a wall of cars.  We found out there was a multi car accident 25k up the road closing the road in both directions.  The electronic signs said to expect 6 hour delays to Golden which was only about 75k away.  We googled the only other route to Golden where we had booked beds in a hostel and it was about 200k to go around via Highway 93.  We backtracked to 93 only to find that road closed due to an out of control forest fire.  The guys blocking the road said that the original route to Golden on Highway 1 was now open but moving slow due to the backed up traffic.  So we then went back to Lake Louise to grab some dinner and hopefully wait for traffic to clear on the route to Golden.

An hour and a half later we jumped back on Highway 1 only to hit a wall of cars instantly.  My Central and South American training taught me to avoid waiting in traffic by any means possible.  In this case it meant running the shoulder – totally illegal.  So for the next 50k I ran the shoulder until traffic was moving normally.  My excuse if a cop pulled me over would be that my bike is air-cooled and would overheat in stop and go traffic (true fact).  We had to get to the hostel by 10pm as that was the advertised latest check-in allowed.  I rolled into the hostel at 5 minutes to 10 so mission accomplished.  Joe and I had become separated in the traffic but we arrived to the hostel minutes apart.

The Kicking Horse Hostel is owned by a hospitable Scottish woman who showed us the layout and to our bunks.  I chatted a bit with an interesting couple from Eastern Canada who were on a 14 day ride in BC.  They had also got caught up in the road closure in the opposite direction and had turned around and come back to the hostel for a second night.

Heading west tomorrow but have no idea the route or destination at this point – the way I like it!