OB's motorcycle travels, projects, ideas

July 7, 2008: 332 miles, from Jasper, Alberta, Canada to Will ‘o Bend, British Columbia, Canada

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We woke up this morning, without having even been nibbled by a bear, so life was good! I kid, I kid…but it sounds adventurous, eh! I grabbed my toiletries from the bear locker and found some fresh clothes in my disorganized mess of a pack, and headed off for an early shower, as we wanted to get back into town and do some much needed laundry somewhere, before heading down and across the US border to Missoula or thereabouts. The shower was one of those ridiculous contraptions where you have to hold a button in against a very strong spring, for the water to flow for more than 10 seconds, and no hot-cold adjustment. I like cool showers, not steaming hot showers, and this thing was really frustrating, but hey…at least I was able to scrub the smell off me, even though by the time I’d finished drying off, I was damp with sweat again in the sauna like atmosphere. Oh well, at least it was free!

We threw our packs on the bikes, and headed into town, and rode around for a bit before finding a small Laundromat next to a hotel, but that appeared to be shut. We found it was open and self-serve without any attendant in site, so we threw in a few loads of smelly clothes after getting some coinage from the hotel receptionist up the road (as the coin machine in the Laundromat was not accepting our notes denominations). After loading the stuff in the washers, we rode around to find a place to grab a quick bite, while the clothes were losing their human flavour.

We found a small coffee shop with a large selection of pastries, so parked the bikes and grabbed a few bar stool type chairs at the window. A couple of Harley types arrived, with their pristine Italian styled leather jackets and such. They looked like some hardened ……….ehhh……accountants with stick-on tattoos, which is the image thing that so many of us bikers simply don’t fully understand. Now, in fairness to Harley riders everywhere, I actually like some of the bikes. I’d love to own a Harley tourer one day for some long distance riding, and we all can respect those true biker Harley owners who actually ride their bikes somewhere….and we HAVE seen a lot of Harley riders out in northern Canada doing exactly that.

THOSE guys, we can understand and respect. They are generally the older, long-time biker types, who work on their own Harleys, and understand the difference between a drive belt and an oil filter, and who can fix a problem themselves on the side of the road, while also thinking nothing of running a 1000 mile ride across the country on their cool Harley bikes.

It’s this OTHER type of Harley owner…..the more recent phenomenon of the urban Harley “image” rider, who uses their bikes as some kind of bar-hopping, image-boosting device, to be used almost exclusively from their homes to the local bike joint and the occasional wobbling, slow, staggered-pattern, noisy, local country-road parade, which generally succeeds in holding up the local farming tractors and trucks and cars and other bikers….that is truly irritating to many of us. These guys are not bikers. Many of them will not even stoop to the simple, universal biking wave to a fellow biker. My theory here is that these novices are too nervous to release their death-grip on their steeds, to chance a quick wave with one hand.

Enough of the rant….and back to this morning. We finished our pastries and coffee and shot back to the Laundromat to run them through the dryer, before getting back to the campsite to pack up and head south along HWY-93 passed Lake Louise in the Banff National Park, the other large Canadian park in the Rockies.

After packing up, we headed south on the 93 and rode along the ridge of the Rockies, passed high ice-covered peaks and glaciers. It was very cold on the bikes, and I was very happy to have decent cold-weather gear. I had clipped the thermal inner liners back into my waterproof jacket and pants, and wore jeans under the riding pants. Jaryd had added additional layers as well, something like 2 pairs of T-shirts, under a fleece jacket, under a pullover, under his thermal riding jacket under his extra outer waterproof jacket on the top, with a long fleece balaclava under his full helmet, plus winter riding gloves, and then on the bottom, two pairs of socks under his waterproof shin-high riding boots, and thermal long underpants under his waterproof riding pants with its own thermal layer. In addition, we had our electric hand warmers switched on to provide some warmth to the hands.

And we were still cold.

Oh well….this is just something one must get used to, when riding in these types of environments on a cold, overcast day. The beautiful sights in the Rockies, and especially, the gorgeously beautiful, almost luminescent green glacial lakes always lifted our spirits and took our minds off the cold. What a ride!

We stopped near Lake Louise for gas, and while there, I thought it might be a good idea to quickly adjust the engine balancer tensioners on the three bikes, because we’d been riding hard and long for many thousands of mikes, and the motors were starting to feel a little rough. It’s only a 2-minute procedure on these bikes, so we finished in sort order, and then headed south again.

We were thinking we’d sleep over somewhere near Cranbrook, so this would be our last night in Canada, before entering the USA again, for the long slog back across the country to Michigan.

First, we enjoyed the ride through Banff National Park (which we managed to avoid paying the entry fee despite me losing the receipt from Jasper National Park the day before, which would enable us to travel through Banff within 24 hours of issuance. The lady relented and let us through despite the lack of receipts, which was nice as the fees are quite expensive, at about $16 per bike or so, IIRC)

South of Lake Louise, we turned west on the western loop of the 93, and away from the HWY-1 which would have led us east to Calgary, and soon we were riding through the Kootenay National Park, part of the Canadian National Parks system along the Rockies.

Soon after passing this beautiful lake, the weather turned very cold and misty again.

We rode through the small town of Radium Hot Springs, behind a lot of slow traffic, and so decided we’d stop for lunch and fill up the gas tanks.

We found a little restaurant along the main road, which was nearly empty (not a good sign), but the sight of the young waitress had Jaryd’s mind very much made up that this was the place for us!

While waiting for our food, the place started to fill a little, so by the time we had finished our meal, the restaurant was probably half-full. Clearly, this restaurant has busy and some very quiet times of the day.

Anyway, after filling up with gas, we were on the road again, and headed south again on the 93, passed some very interesting sounding towns, including….Shuswap, Invermere, Fairmont Hot Springs, Canal Flats, Skookumchuck, Wasa, Bummers Flat 6, Fort Steele, Cassimayooks, Fenwick, Wardner before we came upon the turnoff to Cranbrook.

On a whim, I decided we’d just keep going, rather than turn off the road, but it wasn’t that much later that we came to Jaffray, and we looked for a campground. Not finding anything, we stopped two ladies taking a walk, and asked them if they knew of any campground close by, and they said “Sure, just across the river and passed the golf club, on the right".”

So, off we went, across the bridge and passed the golf club, and there…was the campground….just like they said. Easy!

We stopped at the little office near the front of the small, very neat looking campground, and an elderly lady answered my knock on the door, and we negotiated a price for the three small tents, at the back of the campground. Very cheap…and they had free hot showers, although no laundry – but that didn’t matter as we’d just done our laundry in Jasper this  morning.

We pitched camp after riding slowly through the impeccable little campground, which was quite full with RVs, although we were the only tent campers. It was apparent that some of these RVers were golfers here, and enjoyed the very close proximity to the golf club next door. After pitching our tents, we took a stroll and met our neighbor RVer, who invited us to join him around the fire he was building in the fire pit near his RV. We thanked him and said we’d like to join him and his wife after a quick shower. I walked through the campground with my towel, toiletries and fresh clothes in hand, to the shower block near the front of the campground, and walked passed a small group of elderly folks sitting on lawn chairs next to their RV. The one man shouted “Hi there! Where are you guys headed to?”….so I strolled over and we started to chat. They were a real fun crowd, and had obviously spent a little time at the 19th hole after their golf game, so were friendly, inquisitive and funny. They reminded me of the good times I’ve had with my Dad and his golfing friends back in South Africa, where the old blokes kid each other constantly, and pull pranks on each other good-naturedly, as good friends do. I love this part of my too-infrequent visits back to South Africa and my time with Dad and Mom.

After a long chat about where we’d been, and where we were heading, and hearing of their golfing holiday RV trips, we said goodnight, and had a quick shower before joining our camping neighbors for a quiet chat around he fire.

Friendly people….beautiful scenery…..impeccably clean and maintained little campground….my son and a riding buddy on our long bike trip……GOOD TIMES!

Tomorrow, we cross the border into the USA at Roosville, and then head to Missoula, Montana.

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