This weekend was a long one for me (it's always a long one for Véro!) so we decided to get out of the house and take a road trip on the bike.
We packed all our camping gear, some change of clothes and as few things as we could think of and headed out to Revelstoke, a town in the middle of the Revelstoke National Park right at the bottom of Mt Revelstoke. The guy in charge of naming was having a good day when he came up with those...
The trip from Calgary to Revelstoke, the town, is about 400 kilometers. We got there in about five and a half hours, having stopped every hour to stretch our legs and in Lake Louise to get some breakfast at the Chateau. So I say we made good time. But it taught us one thing: we're not quite ready to go any farther in one day! We were really aching when we got there.
Once in town, we found a camping lot at the KoA (never our first choice, but others were full), installed the tent and sleeping bags, took a swim in the pool, had a snack, took a nap and then finally got back on the bike to go into town. After a quick stop to get dinner, we rode up Mt Revelstoke using the very nice 26 km road to the top. Lots of switchbacks along the way, which I rode through about two times too fast; that was really fun.
At the top, we got to walk around a bit and look at the view... through the clouds of mosquitoes. We got there in the evening, before the sun went down, and the lack of tourists making noise and generally being obnoxious was made up by mosquitoes making no noise and generally being obnoxious.
Then down again through the switchbacks.
The next day, after a quick and early breakfast at Denny's, which is not something I recommend unless you don't know where else to go, we came back to Calgary like tourists, taking about eight hours whilst stopping at the Giant Cedars Boardwalk, Emerald Lake, Takakkaw Falls and Subway.
The Subway in Golden is quite the busy place, lemme tell ya.
Emerald Lake and Takakkaw Falls we had already seen, but they are really wonderful places. The lake is correctly named for it's color and the falls are the second biggest in North America. We love going there and go back whenever we can.
The Giant Cedars Boardwalk I had never seen before and Véro, who saw it in her recent trip, took me there. It's an old growth forest of cedars, like the name implies, and these are very large trees. It is an incredible sight that I recommend to every visitor who has the courage to drive that far.
We made it back home Sunday night. The trip was a wonderful experience and taught us that we need to develop some endurance and get some more tailored gear (like some form of storage for the bike) so we can go even farther next time.
Because, trust me, there will be a next time.
