A ride in the Rockies

[PJ520]

Some thoughts on the article in April/May Cycle. It certainly is a wonderful part of the world. If you want to maximize the spectacular stuff it may be possible to fly into Vancouver, catch a train to Jasper, ride to Banff and catch a train back to Vancouver. You'll have to research the trains yourself. Last summer I caught a train from Vancouver to Jasper and rode to Portland Oregon via the Icefields Parkway and Banff, so I've no idea how or if the Banff-Vancouver thing works but it looks like it would be fun if it's doable.

Between and including Jasper and Banff you can stay in hostels every night. There's nothing in the way of grocery stores on the way and the hostels don't do meals but they do have cooking facilities and even the 'primitive' ones are pretty comfortable i.e. earth rather than flush toilets and one had no electricity, you wash in the creek etc.. I was very lucky in several respects: I had sunshine all the way but be aware you can get snow in July at higher elevations; last year was a very mild year for mosquitos which can be pretty grim and I had a blessedly uneventful encounter with a grizzly bear just before the highest point on the Parkway, Bow Summit. The road at that point is a four lane highway and I was going very, very slow (I found out later my bike and gear weighed 80 lbs!) and a bear walked out in front of me, I stopped, he (or she) stopped, looked straight at me, decided he wasn't interested and carried on across the road. I suppose I was about 30 ft away. The author of the article mentions bears and they are a very real presence. I regret not getting a picture but a lady from Alaska I met on the train back from Portland told me I did the right thing not taking pictures; you don't want to do anything that might get their attention. He had a head the size of a cow's that looked exactly like an enormous teddy bear's. Actually I was too scared to do anything. I didn't have any but you may want to consider getting bear spray at the start of your trip, it's readily available in Canada.

So I heartily second Lewis Smith's recommendation. I further recommend Adventure Cycling's Great Parks North map. I can't speak to anything east of Banff. For general BC riding there's Cycling British Columbia by Paul Wood ISBN 978-0-9684826-2-9.

[pal]

Thanks for posting this: very interesting!

I've been thinking of a ride round there, but was a bit put off by the Cycle article's comments about the amount of (motorised) traffic on the Icefields Parkway: could I ask how you found it?

I'd also be v. interested to hear about the route you took from Banff to Portland -- that's something I've been thinking about too!

[PJ520]

Thanks for posting this: very interesting!

I've been thinking of a ride round there, but was a bit put off by the Cycle article's comments about the amount of (motorised) traffic on the Icefields Parkway: could I ask how you found it?

I'd also be v. interested to hear about the route you took from Banff to Portland -- that's something I've been thinking about too!

I didn't find the traffic too bad though it was there all the time. Ironically I asked the warden of the hostel just before Bow Summit if I needed bear spray. He said "If there's bears around you'll see plenty of cars stopped looking at them" There were no cars around when that bear walked out. There's never traffic when you want it!

There's a couple of ACA ways of going south from Banff. The longer, harder and more scenic one goes through Glacier NP in the US from Castle Junction to Whitefish MT the other goes pretty much due S from Castle Junction via Radium to Whitefish; a bit less strenuous and marginally shorter. I went the more direct route last year because I rode through Glacier the year before when doing the Northern Tier. If it's your first time I strongly recommend the route via Glacier, the whizz down the Going To The Sun road is not to be missed. From Whitefish it was down to MIssoula then E to Clarkston ID and down the Columbia to Portland.The ACA maps I used were Great Parks North and Lewis and Clark Maps 6 & 7. I'm sure there's plenty of routes other than ACA but don't forget there's nothing remotely close to OS maps over here, distances are relatively huge and phone service can be iffy at best so you can go a long way out of your way. Some of the GPS stuff might work I wouldn't know.

This in Glacier NP on the way down from the Continental Divide in August.

[pal]

That sounds (and looks!) ace. I've got the ACA maps for the Great Parks North route: will start day-dreaming over them again... Thanks!

[PJ520]

Do make sure you have the latest addenda to your ACA maps. The info in them is very useful but does get out of date: I ended up doing an extra 20 miles to a campsite one day because a B & B on the ACA map had closed. For grizzly reasons wild camping is not advised.