Alberta
Coming out of the Crows Nest Pass the cycling gets WAY easier. At the summit there are a series of aqua pools that invite swimmers and kayakers to get a splash. The scenery is fantastic.
Now the mountains are rock faces rather than the tree covered mountains on the other side of the pass.
The scenery changes immediately actually. Even on bicycle we’re moving fast enough that it felt like a fairly instant change in the type of views to be had entering Alberta.
We’re mostly travelling downhill now and our speed had really picked up. We’ll get a lot of ground covered this afternoon.
Our small phone cameras can in no way capture the vast distances we could suddenly behold. Makes the mountains and trees we just left almost feel claustrophobic.
We came upon a haunted town. Coleman. We rode all the way through and didn’t see a soul. We’re off the highway now on paved path but eerily no one in sight.
The locals must know better than to be out and about while Calgarians are rushing back to work after a long weekend.
A train in the mountains is really the quintessential Western Canadian image. The amount of goods we ship over such great distances by truck and train is surely something amazing for such a small population.
The train was going east and we thought about hopping on…. No just kidding, that locomotive was moving. The crossing wait was barely a few minutes.
We took a side road to check out the huge rock slide at Frank. Most of the really obnoxious traffic had turned North for Calgary by now but it was still pretty draining to be out on the highway.
There is an absolutely noticeable difference in the way cyclists are treated in Alberta. Since around Fernie we’ve felt the Alberta plates buzzing us close with their mirrors and trailers. We’re getting honked at. The cyclist is not welcome. Made clear.
The landscape is just as spectacular as anywhere in Canada, and we collected photo after photo of long vistas across distant valleys.
We stopped for a break at a ruin more akin to something you’d see in Europe. Snapped this photo in between cars. We decided not to go across the highway to learn more as there was just so many cars blowing by in both directions.
The road away from the highway leads to a waterfall near Lundbreck. There is a beautiful little campground on the creek down stream and we stopped in to consider staying for the night.
Alberta provincial camp sites can only be booked by phone apparently, and they weren’t answering our call due to the long weekend. We thought we’d wait around and see if anyone else would be using the spot and didn’t unpack any of our gear. At least we got a short swim in the creek! Tiger mamma shooed us out and on our way with a snarl. No worries. We can camp anywhere now.
We covered some more kilometers and find ourselves at the outskirts of Pincher Creek as the sun was setting.
We briefly considered setting up camp at the base of this abandoned grain elevator, but the spidey senses were tingling and the area seemed a little sketchy for us.
Four or five more kilometres into the town of Pincher Creek and we arrived at a very sad little camp site run by a very sad man. The paid showers were hot, and he was doing his best. We hope his life/outlook improves. Depression is a killer.
We have yet to encounter an outwardly happy or friendly person since entering the province. It’s only been one full day I guess, and we are really trying to keep up the social vibe that we enjoyed with the first few weeks of our trip, but there seems to be a real unwelcome to cyclists here in rural Alberta.
Maybe we’ll wake up tomorrow morning with attitude improvements. It might be us. We’re tired.
Setting out from Pincher Creek we elected to take the gravel away from the highway to skip a big uphill and ride in peace and quiet.
The cows we meet along the way are hilarious. They’re so interested in bikes and came running over to say hi. They perk up if you say moo and follow us along the fence. We’re starting to practice our française with these gals. Not ready to try our fumbling in the language on native speakers just yet.
We’re riding through the windiest place in Canada. It swirls and howls here from all directions and we’re fortunate to have it at our back today.
These giant wind turbines are all across the skyline and because there are so many, you don’t realize how big they are until you get close. They’re quite noisy as well.
There’s just no way of capturing the full scale of this landscape by camera. Panorama shots just don’t do it. I think you could get a good sense of the views in BC through the lens of a professional photographer, but here in Alberta the land is just so vast I don’t believe you can see it any other way than in person.
Our attitude is still not great today and we are not finding ourselves able to get along with the locals as well as we’d like.
Even the horses here are seemingly upset that our Taiwanese steeds have stolen their jobs.
Our experience got worse.
Following a Google maps route, we continued onto a gravel road even after the pavement ended abruptly. Big mistake. The loose gravel was tough going and we were really struggling to get anywhere.
Unbeknownst to us we had entered ‘reserve’ land and found ourselves in quite a hostile environment.
The first truck stopped to ask us “Where the hell are you going?!” “St.Johns” we said naively ………………”Newfoundland“
He was not amused. He was very angry. He wanted us “the hell” out of there and no amount of apologizing seemed to bring him down. We pleaded for the fastest way off the private property and went in thé direction he pointed us.
Then it got worse.
A flat tire is irritating under normal circumstances, but this was going to be a high stress tube patch and it was the rear too so everything had to be unloaded to get the wheel off. As we worked at the tire frantically, with panniers and stuff piled at the side if the road, we were yelled at by about 6 more angry drivers in trucks, getting progressively more menacing the younger they got. We wanted out, and they wanted us out. Could’ve been out quicker if they threw our bikes in one of those trucks and shuttled us back to the highway but no dice.
Not my best patch job. Rode it mostly flat out of the private land and got back to the pavement and booked it for the highway.
We’re super sorry we trespassed, We do not recommend blindly following google mapping for cyclists in Alberta without carefully checking whether you might cross onto private land. We did not cross any fences or go through any gates so we don’t even know where the public road ended. The gravel I guess? We hadn’t looked at the map for whether or not there would be reserve land on the recommended route, but boy we sure know now.
Alberta is so pretty. It’s very sad that everyone we’ve encountered so far is so grumpy.
Thunder storms in Fort McLeod slowed us down while we waited it out in an A&W, but we made good speed to Lethbridge when the rain let up a bit.
We had a really great conversation with a nice couple that was very interested in our experiences. We kept it positive. We stood on the bike path and chatted for quite a while relieved to have finally broken the ice!
Our picture taking ground to a halt at Medicine Hat. We stayed two nights with family there and had such a great time we neglected to take any photos. Sorry!
There’s a great bike shop in Med Hat called Cyclepath and it’s the only thing we went out to at all for the roughly 36 hours we were in town. We otherwise just hung around in the kitchen eating cinnamon buns and getting laughs that only aunts and uncles can deliver.
Medicine Hat is where we meet up with the #1 highway and seeing the 110 sign was encouraging. Now we can really go fast!
Alberta, thou art so beautiful. If we ever go back, it will be with a huge diesel powered pickup and we’ll stick to the more urban centres.
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