Day 10 - Golden BC (334 km): Size DOES matter ...

... for mountains, at least.

After the worry and, literally, headache of last night, I was amazingly calm this morning. As it turned out, Tom was going flying after he dropped Jim off at the airport so he offered to escort me to the TCH via Hwy 22 south and around Calgary. We both topped up our gas tanks and I checked my tire pressure (I added a bit; I lose 5 pounds for every 3 I put in). Another sunny day in paradise and about 22 degrees at around 1030h when we finally hit the road. Tom pulled me over just before the turn-off to give me more tips about negotiating my route. At the 65-km mark, with big parting waves, Tom went east to Calgary and I, swallowing the lump in my throat, headed west into the mountains.

First stop - Banff, at around noon. As I was riding toward the mountains and making a gradual decline into Banff, I thought 'wow, these mountains are huge and beautiful'. And then, I turned a sweeping curve and faced a humungous wall of rock. I actually went weak in the knees. The crazy part about it is that the scenery got even more spectacular in BC, riding through Yoho National Park.

I took the second exit into Banff and ran into construction at the hospital entrance. I got into the residential area rather than riding onto Banff Avenue and finally had to stop and ask someone for directions to Bear Street where Lynne's shops are located. Once I found Bear Street, I had to test one parking spot along the sidewalk (wouldn't work because the slope to the curb kept me from putting my sidestand down) and settled on one further up the street. I met Lynne's beautiful and talented daughter, Southorn, at their store (Mountain Magic Sportswear) where I bought one of Southorn's Lilly Lab t-shirts featuring a painting of Lynne's on it (talk about a mother-daughter team!). I then went to Lynne's house and she, Charlotte (the stick-loving yellow lab) and I went for a walk along the Bow River. Bowl of soup for lunch and shopping for a book for the Russell Girls, and I was on the road again by 1500h.

Next stop - a little jog into Lake Louise. Just as soon as I stopped by the Welcome to .... sign, a car pulled up behind me. The driver offered to take a photo of me so, naturally, I reciprocated :-) Up a twisty mountain road for a few kilometers and driving the wrong way for a full loop of the very full parking lot, I finally pulled into an empty spot that appeared to be very level - unlike some of the spots that clearly had a bit of a grade (and I mean a WEE bit). Too late, I realized I should have backed into the spot and knew I was going to struggle to get out - unless the car in front of me moved by the time I got back! Once I grabbed my photo (unfortunately, not very good quality and the place was crawling with people) and checked out the washroom, on the way back to the bike I noticed people getting into the vehicle in the adjacent lot. I put a little pep in my step when it occurred to me that I might need Buddy's help, that is, a little push backward. It is what it is; I can't even be all that embarrassed about it anymore. I'm blaming it on having the trunk. I definitely noticed the difference in weight riding to Longview without it yesterday. At any rate, the car adjacent left (after we made some small talk about the trip since he'd noticed my plate) and the space in front of him was already vacant so I did a little diagonal jog across the spaces and continued on my way !

Into BC and Yoho National Park. The word Yoho is the Cree word expressing awe. I've heard about the Canadian mountains. I've been told you see them at a distance and then all of a sudden you're in them. And that they're more magnificent than the ranges that run down through the US. And that what I called 'mountains' in the horizon at Judith Gap where I took the windfarm photos are foothills in comparison to what I'd be seeing. But I had NO appreciation for any of this until I saw them for myself. (same thing with Grand Canyon. You know the dimensions: 15-29 km wide and over 1.6 km deep but you can't appreciate it until you see it). I kept thinking about how I'd describe my impressions and all I have are cliches. I was dumbstuck, overwhelmed and actually intimidated. For the first time, I had a twinge of almost preferring to be in a car - I felt so miniscule and vulnerable on the bike. As I rode through Yoho National Park, I so very much wished that John was with me to experience this at the same time. We'll come back.

So many places for photographs but not convenient to stop. Water from the mountains rushes like spring freshets and is the most amazing shade of green blue. Smells today were evergreen and, at Kicking Horse Rest Area, the bed of sweet clover where I parked my bike.

The first potentially-bad-outcome occurrence of the trip happened today coming into Golden. I was on the 'canyon road' - steep grades and some tight turns, "obey all signs" deal - and beating down a 4-lane section with a transport truck quite a way behind me but we were on dowhill grade. Just before this, I had been on another 4-lane section of the road - I was on the mountain side, the road is divided by a concrete median and there's a low concrete wall with a railing on the opposite, canyon side - and it's steep. In my peripheral vision, I catch sight of something that makes me think there's a statue on the road (?!). Uh-uh. It's 3 bighorn sheep straddling the lanes of the highway and a 4th is climbing over the railing! Dumbies! They had climbed up the canyon. Back to my close call ... on my downhill run, I saw 3 more, a big and 2 littles, but they were on the side of the road - MY side of the road. I instintively hit the brake and seconds later, the transport truck whooshed by me on the left. I don't need to go into detail about what if there was a car in the other lane and he couldn't move into it, blah, blah.

I arrived in Golden at 1730h and 30+ degrees of heat, and rode in circles a couple of times until I relented and called Peter & Melanie. Good thing it's Sunday and the streets were just about deserted. I arrived just in time for a tall, cold G&T before a fabulous dinner. Peter & Melanie are gracious and generous hosts, and their 3 children are beautiful, polite and happy (well, at least the girls are polite - we don't know about 7-month old Malcolm yet!). After dinner, Peter offered to take me to Mount 7 - a mountain peak in the Rockies where the perpetual snow makes a figure 7 seen from miles away, and where people hang glide, paraglide and do extreme moutain-bike racing (Peter doesn't race but he does don armour and run the race trail; it's almost a verical drop where they take off and although I took a photo, my camera just doesn't capture the steepness of the grade). Off we go in Pete's work F350 pickup that I had to CLIMB into (and then forgot how high the cab is and, consequently, FELL out of it both times we stopped) with a couple of 'dust cutters' (brewed in our own Saint John, NB!) up over a steep, winding and, at times, very narrow loging road. On our way out with Peter clutching the Moosehead, Melanie had offered up a "Can you say Redneck?" ;-) Part way up, there's a mama black bear who's inhabited that one small area for years. Pete told me about her and her 2 tiny cubs, and suggested I turn my camera on - just in case we saw them. No dice. As we approach the top of the mountain, we DO, however, spot a paraglider through the trees - he's just taken off ! We park and make a short climb to the overlook and 6 people arrived to do tandem jumps! We hung around and watched that process, then made our way back down the mountain. On this leg, we didspot Mama B on the side of the road :-) The 2 cubs skittered away but she sat and was looking across the road. As we sat and watched, a 3rd (!) little guy scampered across. Very CUTE!

All in all, a red-letter day.

It's late, the whole Russell family is in bed and I'm tired, too. Ellen, I'm VERY conscious of my punctuation tonight. I hope it's up to snuff ;-)