Sufferfest Day 3 - HI Rampart Creek to HI Mosquito Creek

I slept quite well, aside from being awoken by the lady in the room next door screaming out from a bad dream in the middle of the night. I got up before the alarm (set for 7am) and went off to start water for tea and fry up the falafels for the day (no smoke alarm today!) 

Today is just a biking day, so I packed all the climbing gear into the bottom of the bike trailer, trying to keep the weight low. While doing this I heard the smoke alarm go off in the kitchen from someone else and smiled a bit, glad it wasn't me this time. This smugness would come back to haunt me later.

Our bikes on the porch of the Rampart Creek hostel.

We started off at a good pace, probably averaging 20km/h on the way down to Saskatchewan Crossing, where we took a break to stretch, chat with a young guy who was cycle-camp touring with a friend and reported that the Thompson highway was in rough shape and so they had decided to go down the Parkway further, instead of heading up to Rocky Mountain House.

At the Saskatchewan Crossing resort

Above the resort at Saskatchewan Crossing (Mount Wilson?)

Heading down the further km to the lookout over the Saskatchewan and Howse Pass was fast again, and we read of the First Nation historical use of the pass, and then the blockade of the fur trade route, looking at the distant mountains before getting back on the road.

Weather blowing in over Howse Pass

The climbing started once we crossed the North Saskatchewan River and our speed dropped dramatically. We reached Mistaya Canyon shortly before noon, walking the trail down to the birdge and start of the canyon. It was clouded over by now and starting a light rain, but we started up without rain gear on. At the first pullout though, we pulled in and put on our rain gear: my poncho clipped to my bars, and Marieka's cycling rain jacket.

Heading up from Saskatchewan Crossing

Mistaya Canyon - Bananas. Prior to this, we saw so many banana peels on the road.

Mistaya Canyon

Mistaya Canyon gives good advice.

Mistaya Canyon

We kept going through the rain, planning to stop for lunch at Waterfowl Lake viewpoint. Without really realizing it, we pulled into this viewpoint to grab a bar and for Marieka to pull on her tights (I was lightly chilled, but my legs were drier) and for me to perfect my poncho system by clipping the back of it to my seat rails. (I can perfect it further with a few more clothespins)

We then rode past the lake to the campsite, where we ate lunch overlooking the creek. By now, it had stopped raining, but was still cloudy, so we set off, still in our rain gear, with clearing skies and mountains catching clouds. By this time we had climbed the first little bit towards Bow Summit, it was sunny and warming enough that we took off all our rain gear.

Looking back from the base of the climb up to Bow Pass

Down to shorts and t-shirt as the day warms up; on the way up to Bow Pass

The climb was long and slow, but not as hard as we had expected. Probably two thirds of the way up, we pulled into a pullout on the other side of the road to rest and chat with a mother-daughter pair from Alberta who shared that the Peyto Lake/Bow Summit area was closed ad completely blocked off, although there was still a pullout we could use.

Break at the lookout on the way up to Bow Pass.

Starting back into the climbing we till went slow, but knew we were close to the summit. Seeing the Closed signs, I made sure to get photos of them, and we still took a break at the top to celebrate reaching the highest point on the Icefields Parkway, and our high point of the day.

We had planned to celebrate the summit of Bow Pass...

They really wanted to kill our celebration of reaching the summit of Bow Pass.

We still celebrated the summit of Bow Pass.

Summit of Bow Pass

We were getting towards 5pm, so we quickly headed off, with about 15-20km down to go to get to the hostel. We stopped in at a couple of spots overlooking Bow Lake (phenomenal turquoise colour) and made the hostel by 6pm, where Marieka made the beds while I prepared dinner, dessert, and lunch (setting off the smoke alarm while making the falafels).

Bow Glacier above Bow Lake

Bow Lake

 We had a window of internet access to check the forecast, and discussed plans for tomorrow. If it was raining when we got up at 6am, we would not attempt Achilles Spire, but if it was clear or just cloudy we would be set to go. We had some communication issues about what to wear - I thought Marieka was asking me if she should bring her puffy, when it turns out she was just looking for information about what I was packing, but we talked this our to understand where we were each coming from before going to bed with alarms set for 6am.