Sufferfest Day 8 - Lake Louise to Rampart Creek

This was to be our longest day of riding, 92km in all, across the Bow Summit.

We got up in time to be first in at the hostel pub for breakfast when it opened, to grab a hearty breakfast to fuel 92km of riding across the Bow Pass to Rampart Creek. We both ordered a scramble and fruit bowl, expecting the latter to be a small bowl that had about a cup of fruit in it. Instead, it was a proper bowl of pineapple, grapes, and cut melon. Combined with the hashbrowns, toast, and scramble, it was a lot of food, and I was too stuffed to finish Marieka's uneaten slice of toast and leftover hashbrowns.

Shortly before 8am, I took my bike out of our room and rode to the cafe to get lunch - some falafel pita wraps. On getting back I got changed, finished packing my trailer, and took advantage of having a bit of time while Marieka taped her foot to post another day of journalling to the blog, before hauling the trailer up to begin biking at 9:30am. This time, I had found directions to the bike path North our of Lake Louise, so we didn't have to cross any cattle guards, although the gates on this path were fully manual.

Bikes getting loaded up on the deck of the hostel

Latin slogan above the hostel door.

It was really nice to have a separated bike lane to get onto the 93, and not to have to ride the shoulder of the Trans-Canada highway again. There was really nice cycling infrastructure, but no signage for it - for example, even though I'd been told about the path into Lake Louise, I didn't see anything about it when we were coming in, so we had actually ridden past - as well, there appeared to be gates around the various cattleguards, but no signage at these, or clear paths to use them.

Heading up the 93 we began to warm up. The day had started fairly cool, so I had on my arm warmers, full finger gloves over my riding gloves, and pants over my bike shorts. By the top of the first hill I was opening the vents on my pants. Marieka also noted being really warm, but our first stop wasn't until after nearly 20km of riding, at the pullout (on the other side of the road) for the Lake Hector Trailhead.

Heading up the 93 from Lake Louise

Mountains on the West side of the Bow Valley

Heading down along the 93

Riding up, Mount Hector was prominent and, when Andromache came into view, I was able to point out the Achilles Spite. As we rode past the trailhead for the Achilles route there were 3 cars in the pullout - it seems likely to be busy on any good weather day, even though it's a big day objective.

Before heading up the Bow Pass, we took a short break at Bow Lake to try some of the Gu energy blocks we got in Lake Louise. They were salted lime flavour, and I started singing about my lost shaker of salt, thinking when I went past Hotel Serenidad with its private airstrip, and when my friend Denis plays that song. Well, they definitely didn't hurt as we climbed the gentle hills up to Bow Summit and down a few km to grab our lunches at the lookout.

Looking up from Bow Lake/Num-Ti-Jah Lodge parking

Bow Summit

Our lunch break spot. Note the banana, not ours.

Yum!

Campervan, Canoe, Glacier

Heading down from Bow Pass

It looked like we were heading for rain.

From here, it was downhill pretty much all the way to Saskatchewan Crossing, with a pee and hand relief break at the Mistaya Canyon trailhead. Along the way we were awed by the jagged peaks around us and the imposing bulk of the mountains.

The imposing bulk of the mountains

Mistaya Canyon peebreak

Crossing the North Saskatchewan River

The North Saskatchewan River

At Saskatchewan Crossing Resort I treated Marieka and myself to ice cream (despite it not being particularly warm out) and we made the final push to the Rampart Creek hostel. On arriving, we met Ha, from Toronto, who is on a cross-Canada bike trip, which she started in Toronto more than 50 days ago, and which she hopes to complete by going to Vancouver, flying to Torotno, then heading on to the Atlantic provinces.

The final push to Rampart Creek Hostel

Foxtail and Fireweed!

We had a rehydrated dinner and dessert, did our journalling and are now getting ready for bed. Tomorrow, though a relatively short distance, will be a hard hill-climbing day, as we climb to Parker Ridge from the Big Bend, in addition to the climbs to get to the Big Bend, and from Parker Ridge to Sunwapta Pass. Hopefully, we'll be able to get in a hike of Parker Ridge, as it should allow us to see Castleguard, which I climbed on skis a couple of years ago with Anthony, Frank, Hardy, and Gretchen.