After finally getting to sleep last night, I slept solidly until 9am which was a relief. Camp was still quiet as I made breakfast then head off west into Glacier National Park. Just after getting on the highway, I was driving through smoke. The smoke from the forest fire I’d skirted around yesterday was obviously travelling this way. As I drove through a bunch of construction, visibility was limited to only a couple hundred meters. I entered Glacier National Park to see nothing more than the road in front of me and the hint of some peaks to either side. I was lucky to catch a glimpse of a couple of patches of snow, but that was all I could see of the park.
I stopped at the visitor’s centre halfway through the park where it was busy inside with tourists that had just alighted from a bus. Everyone was asking the same questions of the two rangers at the information desk so I eavesdropped learning that visibility in the whole of the park was poor so a hike would serve only to improve your fitness because it wouldn’t offer any views. The ranger told us that there were dozens of fires raging all throughout the park thanks to a lightning storm that hit three weeks ago. Obviously they were waiting for them to run their course. Revelstoke National Park and the town of Revelstoke had better visibility so that was still a goer.
I wasn’t too disappointed about Glacier NP, I’d seen glaciers before and most of the hikes seemed pretty short anyway, so onwards I went into Revelstoke NP. Per the ranger’s suggestion, I stopped in at the Cedar Grove Boardwalk. I’d been driving a couple of hours so it was a good time for a break anyway. The boardwalk wound its way through tall cedar trees in a very stroll-like fashion. I didn’t mind the wander, it was nice to be in a place that was so green and not be able to notice the smoke haze.
Carrying on driving, there still wasn’t much to see in Revelstoke park but as I descended into the town, the haze cleared. By the time I parked at the visitor’s centre, it was a perfect blue-skied day, bloody warm too! Revelstoke was a beautiful little town, I liked it much more than Banff since it was less “done-up”. It seemed like more of a locals place with some trashy parts of town which meant it wasn’t just on display for tourists. At the visitor’s centre I got some mountain biking maps and found out where I could park for free overnight. Since the lady I spoke to wasn’t a mountain biker, she couldn’t recommend any trails so I drove round the corner to the local bike shop and had a chat to two of the workers there. Straightaway, they told me to get onto “Frisby’s Ridge” which had only just opened, explaining that this was the trail that people came from all over to do. I wrote down a couple of their other preferences to keep me busy tomorrow too.
I had planned on driving up Meadows in the Sky road to the top of the ski summit, but figured I’d do a ride first then do that as a wind down. I found the trailhead to Frisby’s Ridge and navigated myself there. Off the highway, I turned onto a dirt road and started climbing. It was rutted as shit with potholes galore so it was slow going. I really do cringe at the noises the Astro makes when she goes over these harsh bumps. Anyway, half an hour later, I was at the trailhead where at least a dozen other cars were parked.
As I was getting myself ready, a couple of riders came down off the trail. I’d asked if they’d seen any bears and they hadn’t but warned there were a lot of bugs. The girl at the bike shop had told me I should carry bear spray on this trail and so that went in my backpack along with some water and my lunch which I planned to eat by the lake at the end of the trail. I hadn’t looked at the topo map for the ride, but when I’d asked what sort of style it was, the girl had said “up and down”, which I took to mean it went up, then down, then up, then down etc. Once I got riding, I knew this wasn’t the case. I was on for a 13km climb, then a ride back down the way I’d come. I don’t know if I’d have committed to this if I’d known that.
The view from the trailhead was pretty so I was expecting great things as I climbed higher. The girl wasn’t kidding when she’d said the trail just opened, this was only the third day to ride it. Lucky me! The rider in the carpark had warned there were a lot of riders on the trail so I took to whooping whenever I approached a blind corner in case someone was bombing down the trail towards me. It worked out pretty well, especially when someone yelled back as they rounded a corner.
The first hour of climbing was in the forest on dusty trail and I was wondering what I got myself into, but I enjoyed the constant burn. The incline was a good one, just enough that you could pedal non-stop with a few flat sections to give you a break and a few short steep pinches over rocks or logs. I was happy when I passed two girls that had left the carpark a while before I had and I’m happy to report that not a single person passed me.
After the halfway mark, things started getting interesting. The forest opened up a bit and wildflowers started lining the trail. Not just one type either, in any given patch there were at least four colours: white, purple, yellow, red. This was pretty. I was starting to lose power in my legs as I kept climbing, thinking I might have gone too hard at the start again, but I refused to put it in granny gear, I kept cranking along in my second ring.
I resolved to only stop and take photos on the way down, but as I climbed higher, it was too hard to resist. I started seeing patches of snow by the trail and soon enough, patches of snow over the trail. It was bloody August, but they’d had such a good snow pack this year that pools of the white stuff still existed.
As the trees cleared, snow-capped mountains surrounded me and I was in a truly beautiful place. I think this is why people come from all over to ride this trail. Not necessarily because of the quality of the trail as a mountain biking track, but because of the stunning views you get to experience.
As I came to one of the biggest patches of snow, I walked off trail a bit and, seeing an opportunity, lay my bike down in the snow and used it as a tripod to get a photo of myself, just lounging around in the white stuff, mountains and trees behind me. It was good to get a break from the climbing as well! I kept thinking I must nearly be there!
After 12km of climbing, I came to a trail intersection and chose the high road to get to the lake. This was the lat bit, taking me up just that little bit more past lakes dotted around in the field of green, all at the base of snow patches.
Having gotten off my bike and walked through half a dozen patches of snow, one had a good enough track dug into it that I resolved to ride it. It didn’t work very well, that stuff is so damn slippery I fell sideways, landing on my arse and sliding down the rest of the patch with my bike sideways. I laughed out loud at myself and proceeded to walk my bike across the remaining patches of snow.
When I saw the lake, I was excited. I’d made it to the end of this epic climb! It was a beautiful spot with fields of green surrounding it and mountains all around. I gunned it down the trail until I hit its banks where a couple of groups were hanging out after their successful climb.
I dropped my bike by the lake and sat next to her, wrecked, but happy that I didn’t have much work to do to get back down. My sit didn’t last too long, I don’t know how the other group did it, the bugs were plentiful and menacing. They were march flies or something and when they bit, they bit hard. I swatted away at them as best I could, but there was no way I was going to be able to enjoy my lunch sitting here. Just as the other riders set off, I followed them up the trail. Bit of a shame I couldn’t have sat there longer and enjoyed the view that I’d have had all to myself.
I passed both groups on the climb back up to the main trail, taking the low road back to the only trail intersection. I was looking forward to taking my time on the way down, resolving to stop and take photos. I tried to capture the red tinge that was present on a lot of the snow. I can’t explain it, but I’d seen it from a distance in the Icefields of Banff too and wondered where it came from. When I touched the top of the ice, it brushed away and just looked like bits of dirt so I wondered if it was a trick of the eyes or something that made it look red.
The views were completely different going back the other way, but after a few kilometres, of descent, I was back amongst the trunks of trees without much to look at.
I carried on with my yelping and stopped for a few riders climbing up the trail just as I had a while ago. I almost pitied them. Going downhill was great, but it didn’t impress me nearly as much as the downhill trails I’d just done in Banff. As I neared the trailhead hitting switchback after switchback, I found myself thinking, “When will it end?” and eventually it did.
Back at the trailhead, I could see the smoke haze to the east but for some reason, Revelstoke and the surrounding mountains were crystal clear. I’d been very lucky. Without the views, that ride would have been shithouse, but because I got a reward for all my hard work, it was worth it.
I had planned to stay the night in Revelstoke and ride again tomorrow, but I felt so knackered that I didn’t think that likely to happen. Since I’d already ridden the best trail in the area, I felt ok with heading off west to meet up with Dan in Seattle. A tiny bit of deliberation later, and I’d made the decision. Seattle was only 7 hours away. I overheated my brakes on the way down the forest road so took it slow the last half and found a spot by the river to have a much needed shower before I got onto the highway heading west. I was a little sorry not to spend more time in Revelstoke, but something tells me I’ll be back one day.
Almost immediately after leaving the town, I was back in the smoke haze. I just couldn’t believe how I’d lucky I’d been to be in a bubble of clear sky. The rest of my day, I drove. There was nothing between Revelstoke and Seattle that I wanted to see so I was taking the most direct route. I was on a beautiful narrow highway for the first 200km, surrounded by lakes, rivers and mountains, but that was soon replaced with a major highway that was surrounded by lakes, rivers and mountains. Canada really know how to do scenic highways, even with the major ones.
The haze meant that I couldn’t really enjoy the scenery, but that didn’t matter, I was ecstatic just to be heading in the direction of my favourite nomad and his pitbull. I stopped at a Wendy’s for a dirty burger and got some petrol but these were my only stops, I was in my zone listening to music and letting the cars and trucks pass me by. The red sun was replaced by a grey moon but I carried on driving until about 9pm since I had the daylight.
I’d pegged a free camp that was still about twenty minutes away when I saw an exit for Siwash Creek and seeing it was close to the highway, thought I’d check it out. Initially I thought that it was a no-go, but I saw a couple of cars parked with tents set up right by the road and sure enough, another hundred meters along, there was another pullout with an alcove in the trees. This was perfect! I backed my car in and had a whole little forest clearing to myself, out of sight of the road and right next to the creek. Bloody hell I impress myself sometimes.
I had a splash shower in the creek and retired into the van pretty quickly to get to bed. I could hear the noise from the highway to my right, but it was counteracted by the noise of the babbling brook to my left. See you tomorrow Dan.