mytrilife

BC Road Trip training weekend+

Ok.. here's the story of our epic long weekend road trip to BC.

May long weekend is typical annual pilgrimage for a lot of Alberta athletes. The weather usually sucks in AB (it snowed last week) in the spring.

Leaving Edmonton at supper time, Heather and I planned a quick stop in Calgary, then onto her sister's place in Vernon... arriving around 2am or so... that was the plan anyways. After being stopped at Golden due to a landslide closure, we slept in the car til morning to be told that the road MAY open by 1pm that day! So.... our only route to the Okanagan was through south BC and the Kootenays.

It turned out to be not so bad, although plenty of coffee was needed to continue the drive. Southern BC is outstanding! My first time through that route (that I can remember), with some insane mountain passes I'd like to bike some day.

We spent the next night in a little town called Rossland, which sits halfway up a mountain at ~1100m just outside Trail. Took advantage of the trail system for a little trail running... although a bunch of trails were closed due to bear activity. Rossland seems like a neat place to live... a real outdoor lover's paradise. I plan to go back that same region to explore a bit more.

Just outside Rock Creek I dropped off Heather to bike the easier summit of Anarchist pass and then on to Oliver, where I drove to get our campsite at Tuc-El-Nuit lake. (my last post) It's the only lake warm enough to get an open-water swim this time of year... which I took advantage of with a great swim on Saturday morning before our loop of the IMC bike course. There were HUNDREDS of cyclists out in various training camps... we had plenty of company on our ride that day.

Sunday, we packed up our camp and drove to Penticton to watch the 1/2 marathon and 10k race before doing our own 2 hour run down the old Kettle Valley Rail track on the west side of Skaha lake. Deciding that we were too tired to do another ride, we headed to Vernon and an easy swim at the aquatic centre.

On Monday, we rode the back roads from Vernon to Salmon Arm and back. I love riding in the valley north of Vernon, although there's not much for hills, which is good as both of use were hurting from our previous two days.

And finally, to complete our BC tour, we decided to take the north route via Kamloops (hwy 5) to Jasper and then back to Edmonton. Saw loads of wildlife alongside the highway.. bear, moose, elk... even a wolf! Mt. Robson is always impressive, but the sky was a bit overcast, so we didn't bother to stop for a photo opportunity.

Too much driving in 6 days... but a fun trip. Thankfully, my Toyota gets great mileage... as we drove over 3000km in total!

posted by Greg @ 5/27/2007