Okanagan to Alberta! Pt. 4(4) - Crows Nest

Kimberley turned out to be a very special stop for us. We were hosted masterfully by Marek, who welcomed us in late after one of the most demanding riding days we’d had and fed us a wonderful meal. 

Marek took us on a guided tour to Nanjing Road in downtown Kimberly where we sampled the fantastic cinnamon buns from the Bread and Butter bakery. 

The bakery folks said we should never have been directed to come over the Gray Creek pass and the maps needed updating to deter cyclists!

The BlackDog bike shop hooked us up with some replacement bolts that we had shaken loose on the pass the day before. They too were upset that someone had been directed to come over the pass on touring bikes and their sympathy was warm comfort! 

Marek rode with us all the way to Cranbrook, which can be done on a wonderful and scenic bike path paved all the way from Kimberly.

Cranbrook is yet another pretty mountain town and we restocked while we hung around for quite a while under shelter waiting for the rain to subside.  

Fun “small world” story, we ran in to acquaintances from our Regina days that now live in Cranbrook and had biked across Canada a few years ago. We grilled Lindsay and Chris for tips and advice for quite a while and came away feeling encouraged about the rest of our trip.

We said our goodbyes to Marek and headed down the trail leading out of town and away from the Crows Nest Highway. A full day of socializing, and then a lengthy rain delay meant we didn’t get very far that day before we needed to set up camp. 

We enjoyed a splendid sun set while drying out and repacking gear before we set up the tent a little ways off the highway right at dusk.

In the fog and mist we made really great progress early morning and made up for yesterday by putting in big kms early. We’re starting to be able to maintain higher speeds for longer as we improve our cycling endurance.

There is a fantastic trail system in this strip of towns.  From Elko to Morrissey, Fernie and all the way to Sparwood the highway can almost entirely be avoided without any additional kilometer penalty. 

It’s BC, and of course the scenery is unbelievable. 

We enjoyed an afternoon in Fernie and did a restock and phone charge up at the grocery store.

We’re using a battery bank that has a solar panel for topping up, but on cloudy days it’s really only keeping up with one of our phones so we spend some time hanging around power outlets outside of grocery stores when we stock up. 

Fully loaded again we stopped at the Fernie Brewery on the way out of town for a welcome reward.  (No cinnamon buns today). 

Leaving town after 5pm without knowing specifically where we will spend the night is getting a little bit less stressful and we are getting used to the process of seeking out a suitable camp site late.  

We scrambled for cover from a huge downpour in a roadside rest stop at about the halfway point between Fernie and Sparwood.  We considered setting up the tent right here but a train went blasting by only meters from where we were and ruled that out.

Under the shelter waiting for the rain to subside we used a satellite view of the area to find a treed spot by the river a little ways off the highway and away from the trucks and trains.

It turned out to be something of a secret camp site and there were several others already set up with tents and smaller camper vans right on the river side. 

This was one of our favourite camp sites so far and we stayed through the morning as the sun came out to dry our stuff. 

The riding is still fairly flat through here but we know a climb is in our future as we approach the Crows Nest pass which should be the last of our major mountain passes before the prairies.  

This rough looking saloon had the horses of several cowboys tied up outside. We decided not to stop in case our six-shooter jammed.  

It’s starting to feel like we’re getting close to Alberta. More pickup trucks and less small cars. It’s all Alberta licence plates now either way.  

A last look over the shoulder at the province of British Columbia which we have so thoroughly enjoyed, we climbed the Crows Nest Pass and at the summit stopped for a coffee and a ponder.  

This hill climb itself was just a little cutie compared to major hurdles of the past weeks. Perfect riding weather was certainly helpful in getting through the climb, but we were doing the Crows Nest Pass at the same time as the Albertans were returning home from a long weekend.

The highway was chaos and we could not believe the bumper to bumper high speed traffic. There is no shoulder at all in some places so you have to scamper around obstacles quickly between raging drivers that are not interested in your safety at all. 

Ultimately this mountain climb may have been the most harrowing due to the added pressure from the high levels of traffic.  

We’re not sure what our experience would have been like had we taken the #1 highway instead, maybe there’s more shoulder for cyclists?  But we would never recommend riding a bicycle from BC into Alberta on a long weekend. 

We rode our bicycles to Alberta in 2 weeks. We enjoyed most of it! Despite exploring some very remote and new locations, we still always felt at home in BC especially as we encountered Europeans and other visitors. Tourism is such a major part of the BC aura the province does it well. 

Passing the sign into Alberta feels a bit like going out the gate from the safety of our backyard and into the forest. 

One province down, nine to go. 

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