Cranbrook to Nelson

Hello everyone - thanks for your patience. Internet access is limited when you're riding your bikes across the backroads of the Kootenays.

To be honest, I haven't actually read the last blog entries, but I think Sheena filled you in on the trip as far as Cranbrook. We were there only about four days ago - no, three - but it already feels like we're in an entirely different world. We arrived in Cranbrook having ridden the dusty and blazing hot logging roads and rail trails of the East Kootenays for a couple of days. We were dehydrated and sunburnt. Now we're in humid, dark green Nelson, staying with a couple of dear friends from our time at Queen's, and I'm sitting inside on a comfortable couch. It's pretty nice. I think we earned it, too. The ride up from Cranbrook was brutal (but good, too).

Well, the first leg wasn't brutal. We set out from Cranbrook and rode to Kimberley along a newly paved rail trail. In the hierarchy of places one might choose to ride their bike, paved off-road trails are basically tops. And we had 25 kilometres of pavement to enjoy, with no more than a 2% grade (or so) to struggle against. As usual, it was blazing hot, but the smooth surface and complete absence of motor vehicles made up for that discomfort. After a pretty great Mexican dinner in Kimberley (a very nice place, that town) we continued on to a campground on the St. Mary River. The route indicated in the TCT guidebook, a ramble through dirt roads and trails in the Kimberley Nature Park, looked a bit circuitous for after dinner. We chose to follow pavement instead, and were very glad of our decision - it saved us several kilometres, and the traffic was nice and light anyway.

The next leg was the brutal one. After a pretty good sleep, we set out to cross Gray Creek Pass. This is one of those neat shortcuts you notice when you see a map of BC. The unpaved road over Gray Creek Pass connects the east shore of Kootenay Lake with the St. Mary Valley and Kimberley, saving you the long drive through Creston and Cranbrook. There's a cost, of course - it's incredibly steep, rising 1500 metres from the lakeshore to the pass in only eighteen kilometres. The rise isn't as bad when you go from east to west, but it's still gruelling. Thankfully, it's beautiful. And the worst of the elevation gain happened at the end of our ride. The first half of our 64-kilometre ride to the pass was more or less flat, with the road winding up past St. Mary's Lake and through the lush farmland of Meachen. Then we crossed the St. Mary River, and then the hard work began - 30-some kilometres of hard uphill, with grades of up to 16% in places. The road surface was mostly okay, though a few rocky sections made us struggle extra-hard. After the last ten kilometres, which took us something like four hours to complete, we arrived at the pass and wearily cruised downhill to our campsite at a Forest Service rec site a kilometre away.

Yesterday was great compensation for the grind over the pass. We began by gliding down to Gray Creek, barely having to pedal along the way. After coffee (the first good coffee in over a week!) in Crawford Bay, we caught the ferry across Kootenay Lake and had a good chat with a fellow touring cyclist - a history prof from Virginia Tech who says he's toured every summer for the last 23 years. Further along the road to Nelson, we ran into two Washingtonians, who were cycling the TCT from west to east. That makes three TCT cyclists we've encountered so far. Interestingly, they've all been American. C'mon, Canadians! Get on the trail! Anyhow, the road to Nelson was very pleasant to ride. It's paved, and there isn't much traffic. And now we're at our friends' place, enjoying the comforts of the great indoors. It's a lovely change. But it's temporary. On Monday, we're off to visit family in Winlaw, and then on Tuesday we leave for points west - Castlegar, Christina Lake, Grand Forks, Greenwood, Midway, Beaverdell, Naramata, Penticton, Summerland, Princeton, Tulameen, Brookmere - and further!

Thanks for following along. Sheena will put up some pictures in a few minutes!