Alberta

Wifi is hard to find, and when we do find it we often only have half an hour of time, so Niel tends to monopolise it, so I apologise for the few and far between posts.

 

Climbing Rogers Pass

It took us 3 days to climb the Rockies, and descend on to the plains on the other side. We have done some big days 172kms being the biggest. We have also gone from wet and cold to hot and sunburnt.

 

At the top.

Leaving Revelstoke to climb Rogers Pass was a ‘piece of cake’ as we say at home. I have never done such an easy pass. Anyone who finds it hard, should have gone the Allison Pass , Anarchist mountain and Bonanza Pass route, as anything after is easy . We saw 2 Black Bears climbing the pass. They seem to be unbothered by humans, although every time we saw one Niel or I would point at it, and in seconds there are cars screeching to a halt and people piling out of their cars to get as close as they can to get a photo. So much for not approaching a Bear. The hill after Rogers Pass however was not easy, beware anyone cycling this route.

 

Kicking Horse Pass the next day was harder than I anticipated, but was very scenic the whole way. I particularly liked the village of Field. It was settled to construct the railway and spirals for the trains to ascend. It was mostly settled by Italians and it has a pretty and character filled ambience. We saw another Bear at the top of this Pass too.

Lake Louise.

 

We were a bit concerned about the next bit. The road was supposed to be closed for cyclist from Banff to Canmore due to the huge floods of the week before. We were supposed to put our bikes on a shuttle bus, but decided to act like ignorant foreigners if we were confronted, and ride the road anyway. Yes the cycle track had completely been  washed away, the road however was perfect. Cyclist CAN  ride on the road you know !! honestly these people who make the rules should get out of their cars once in a while and experience life by bicycle. Yes I admit there was a lot of debris on the side of the road, and it looked like it was pretty serious. Incidentally the wet boggy ground has created a real mosquito problem

Descending to the plains.

 

We managed to skirt around Calgary by doing a semi – circle through the foot hills and have now descended  onto the plains. It is very hot on the plains and we have got very sunburnt very quickly. In a day or two we will be in Saskatchewan.