In my case it was the Monashee Pass.
I took my time, rolling through Vernon on a Thursday noon, enjoying the ride, arriving in the town of Lumby at just after two pm. Until I reached the highway off Kalamalka Lake Road traffic had been thin. One farm truck driver had stirred up some stones and dust for me to ride through, but other than that, it was a nice roll along the gradually rising hill that leads out past Coldstream toward Lavington.
At the highway things got a little exciting. There's a half K stretch after the junction that can get a little hairy, up a slow curving hill with no shoulders and the trucks and cars moving about 100 k an hour. The shoulder reappears once the dangerous curve and hill are done with.
Seems they build the roads here in BC to make the dangerous sections even more dangerous. Its always on a blind turn or in a bottleneck area that the shoulder disappears. Still, one thing BC has going over other provinces, there are more folks on pedal bikes, and local drivers are more conscious of them. The road stayed good, with a decent shoulder, well past Lavington and up the grade by the mill. Then it went back to being non existent, partly because of what is happening in Lumby these days.
Got a bit of surprise pulling in there. My last visit was just 18 months ago or so, but things have changed. Lumby is a quiet sleepy little bedroom community no more. Modern urban sprawl has finally reached over the hill from the Okanagan and begun to swallow the place up. Every store, even some abandoned for years, now has a business in it. Houses are being built, roads widened, traffic gnarls along the main drag, and the few streets are full of people. There's even a health food store there now!
Rolling into Lumby the traffic seemed to thicken. The sky was doing the same. It was only two in the afternoon but I decided my best bet was to stop, get off the road, and not overdo anything. I knew I had a few days of tough climbing ahead and decided to take it easy. There was also some reluctance, I didn't really want to rush back to the Koots.
Much as the Koots are home to me, I'm sort of homeless in them. Besides, going back where I come from demands I begin to finally deal with all the unfinished business a summer of cycling creates. I was definitely doing my best to delay that eventuality as long as possible.
So I pulled into the Lumby Lions Campground, just a couple blocks off the main drag, on something of a small river island adjacent to the local sports complex. It was a nice little spot for the most part, with a creek running through and around it. As a result of the confluence of creek beds, the campground has a little mote around it, lending it a rather unique aura.
I arrived to find the camp pretty much closed up for the season. However, there were a couple winnis parked, so I hauled Wheels and BoB up to site and sat down. Hadn't been there very long when the local Lion showed up. At first he seemed a little wary of this weird looking hippie-type on a bike full of crap. But he softened some when I gave him my patented "Howyadoin?" and he realized I was an old fart like him.
His initial reaction to me was not uncommon. All people see at first is this rag tag shock of hair and beat up clothing on a bicycle that looks like Granny Clampett might yet set her rocker atop it. It takes them a moment sometimes to realize that I'm just another hairy middle-aged Canadian boy on an adventure.
The guy let me have one of his prime power and water sites, the one I was sitting at, for a reduced price. His reduced price was $18! The plug-in price was $25, which would have sent me to the motel. I'd told him I liked the spot so much I was almost willing to give him the extra for it.
Then I did a little rant about campgrounds that are all designed for big honkin' winnibegos that tear up the road, break the trees, and flood the local sewers, and cyclists should get a break just because we don't impact so much, and how all the way to Winnipeg and back I'd been finding campgrounds that were doing just that! But the real clincher came when a couple pulled in in a van then left again.
"Hey Will," said the man, pointing at a red van pulling out of the grounds. "After all the riding you've done, guess why those guys are leaving! They think the showers are too far away to walk to! I thought they were going to ask me to build them a new facility this afternoon."
It was then he acquiesced the best site in the place to me.
Had funny neighbours there, an older couple in a travel trailer who were scared of everything. Several times they poked their noses out the trailer door when little noises occurred, such as a raven dropping seeds on their overhang, or trees creaking, or me walking down to the creek.
When they weren't busy being scared by all the nature around them, they were wholly occupied arguing with one another. Not once did I hear them speak normally to one another, it was always with some sort of whine or anger. Later, they had some visitors, and lit a fire on the open ground near their trailer, not too far from their campsite's fire pit. My pal, the Lion, showed up fairly quickly and asked why they were creating an open ground fire and weren't using the fire pit. Turns out they weren't sure the fire pit was a fire pit at all, despite the ashes in it, and had also decided it wasn't in the right place for them to sit around!
They were told to put their fire out politely, which they did, before retreating to their trailer for the night.
I had a rather nice sleep there after Kin Beach, where the local hot-rodders do their late night congregating, and the whole campground is lit up like a baseball diamond during a big game. Always find it a little weird when campgrounds have big lights that shine all night, blotting out the stars, and keeping people in tents from having any hope of getting their melatonin up! The Lions Campground in Lumby had such lights, but they were focused around the bathrooms, not the tent sites. It was quiet there, quiet and starlit, except when it rained a little in the night, and at seven the next morning when some big semi rolled up to the nearby sports complex and started unloading, which is also when the local mill began to bang, which in turn raised the flow of traffic.
By 7:01 I knew I had no choice to get up and go, which suited me fine, but it was such a lovely little site I was in I hung around, drying out my tarps and writing in my journal until almost 10, telling myself I had at most, a 40 K day ahead, to a campground on the otherside of Cherryville.
Staying two nights at Kin Beach was rather foolish of me. First, it was expensive. Second, I got very little sleep and not much rest. It was stressful too, especially when some young Albertan in an SUV decided to keep dusting my camp by driving real fast down the dirt road past it, and smiling at me, like he wanted to fight. He seemed a symbol to me, of Alberta, and reminded me how grateful I was to be back in BC.
I learned from his friends, who were quite civil folk, that he was leaving. His friends were two couples relocating from Squamish, where Olympic development is putting such a bite on the lower income folk's wallets that even the middle class are fleeing. The two guys were drywallers, as was the Alberta Boy. In fact, the Albertan had got them a job drywalling, just down the road, where local developers, and the town apparently, have decided its a good idea to build condos all over through the marsh!
The plot thickens. When the boss found out what good drywallers the Squamish guys were, he fired the Albertan! That had gone down a few days earlier, and since then the Albertan had been on a drinking binge, but had finally been ordered home, to his Uncle's in Edmonton, to return the SUV and camping gear. The Squamish folk could not wait for him to go, nor could the camp attendants, but all of them were a little bit afraid to push him out because, in their words, he was a "little unpredictable."
I'm not sure why they called him that. I found the guy totally predictable, which also allowed me to avoid him.
Finally, he was leaving, and had loaded all his Uncle's camping gear up, along with his drywalling tools, and his beer, into his SUV. He gave me one last dusting, and one good laugh! He'd forgotten to put his Uncle's expensive lantern back into the SUV after placing it on the hood of the vehicle for a moment. As he dusted my campsite, it flew off and broke into a million pieces. I pretended not to notice as he stopped suddenly, got out, and started cursing himself.
I could see him when he got home, explaining to his uncle what happened; "Some weird hippy guy on a bicycle stole it," and his uncle reaming him out, demanding reimbursement. At least, I hoped that's what would happen.
Anyway, the lack of sleep and proper rest, did not allow me to adequately recover from the Monte Lake ride, and subsequent wind bashing I'd taken since Kamloops. To boot, I'd not really had any opportunity to recover from the long ride down from Valemont. Heading to Cherryville that day felt like climbing three hills at once, and the traffic wasn't helping either.
It wasn't local traffic, it was Europeans in RVs who'd never seen cyclists on the road before. In Europe cyclists have their own roads, and these Euros weren't quite sure how to treat them, so they did what they've seen all the other Rvers do. They gunned their engines and got by me quick as they could, filling my lungs with emissions and scaring the hell out of me most of the time. I would spend much of that day listening for the vehicle that was going to finally do me in. Fortunately, it never came!
Did okay on the first few hills and arrived at Franks in Cherryville a couple hours later. Franks is a gas station-convenience store, owned by a guy named Kim, who always looks at you like you're not giving him enough money when you make a purchase.
Anyway, it was after I left Franks that the hills really started to climb. The traffic also thickened, and my side of the road got a lot tougher to ride on. Several times over the next couple hours I saw the same Highways truck race by, with the same driver in it, apparently doing nothing but driving back and forth. Meanwhile, the shoulders, not even the shoulders really, but the whole passenger side of the lane, was full of little dunes made of road-sand and pebbles. I could not ride over on the far righthand side because my wheels kept catching in this debris. Nor could I ride on the actual shoulder because it was the same, buried. So there I was, holding a lane in the middle of the lane, on eight to 12 per cent grades, while the RVs and logging trucks raced up behind me.
Visions of my messy demise danced in my head all day, until shortly after three o'clock when I pulled into the Goldpanner Campground, just behind some Germans in pick-up campers, who'd moments earlier blasted me with their exhaust pipes and come within inches of manifesting my visions.
"My God," one of the German women said, when she saw me walk in the office, "you sure are fast!"
"So are you," I told her, "too fast!" But she didn't seem to get what I was saying.
Once again I was charged $20 to pitch my tent, but was able to pick a nice site with no one parked around it, to take a walk and stretch some of my muscles, and to cook a good dinner, before falling asleep as a light rain pattered on my tent fly.
At six am the next morning, the engine of a large pick-up truck, parked outside a nearby cabin, was started and left idling for about 10 minutes, 30 meters from my tent. I woke up growling.
When I could bear it no more I bellowed. "Turn your engine off!"
"RELAX!" came the reply.
"You go to sleep in a tent, then have some neuron start a hemi engine 30 meters from your head at six in the morning and relax," I barked back.
I heard the guy get back in the truck. He revved the engine again, hit the gas, then drove up near my tent.
I stayed where I was, in my sleeping bag.
He revved the engine again, backed away, then tore up the airwaves and the gravel road, speeding away. By 6:15 he was gone.
Unfortunately, or fortunately perhaps, I was awake, and set to work doing my morning thing: rolling up my sleeping bag as I exit it, releasing the air from and rolling up my mattress, doing the same to my bivy, then crawling out of my tent to make a bee line for the food bags. Out came the stove and mess kit, then the coffee and the porridge. In went the water to the pot. Connecting stove to gas can, I set it up and lit it. Placing the pot of water on the stove, I walked over to a nearby tree and peed, long and luxurious. Then I turned to my tent, pulled out the stakes holding the fly on, lifted the fly off, and hung it on a line I'd strung the night before. Then I pulled the bags from the tent and packed them on the BoB. By time I had the actual tent on the line beside the fly, the water was boiling. Shaking some grounds into the little metal filter I carry, I set it on my cup, and poured the water through. When there was enough water in the filter, I set the pot back on the stove and refilled it with water. Placing the lid on it, I reached in my BoB, pulled out my journal and pens, put the lid on the coffee cup, set the filter aside to drain, and started writing. A couple minutes later the water boiled again. I got up, rinsed my small pot with some of the boiling water, pulled open my porridge bag, brought out three handfulls of the mixture of oats, grains and raisins, and threw them in the pot I'd just rinsed. Then I filled that pot with boiling water, put its lid on, turned off the flame, and sat back down to my writing. An hour later, when I was done writing, my porridge was also done.
Got out of the Goldpanner by 10 am. It had taken some time for my fly and tent to dry after the rain.
Setting out, it felt like I was still climbing three hills at once, but this latest one was a doozy. It went up and up and up and up, then it went up some more, mostly in little short climbs, then even patches, then more climbs, but in one place the climb just went on and on, so I got off and walked a bit. Even then it was a slog. About noon the road mellowed, sloped downward here and there, and I found myself rounding a lake and coming up on Spruce Grove.
Over the years I'd stopped in Spruce Grove many times. For a long time it was owned and operated by a family who were known for their good helpings and decent prices. They were a friendly bunch, running a camp on the side, and catering mostly to truckers. The last time I'd been through, on my way to Europe in 2006, the place had been sold to a young couple.
I'd stayed in their bunk house and they'd been nice to me. However, this time, for the first time ever, the place was closed. There was a sign in one window, scrawled on news print in magic marker: "Closed. Will Re-open Soon, Pending Divorce Settlement!�
It was sad to find out the kids hadn't made it. And it meant that my only option that day would be to cross the summit and go down the other side, to either Edgewood, or Plum Hollow, a campground on the Arrow Lakes. Secretly I'd been hoping Spruce Grove would be open because I would have made it another short day.
Lucky for me, with my thighs now swollen to the size of pumpkins, and my energy, despite overdoses of bee pollen and mulitvitamins, was in the toilet. The road continued to level off somewhat, and the last hill was not too long. At about one in the afternoon I pulled into the Lost Lake Rest Area at the Monashee Summit. I rode in, set my bike against a picnic table, and wobbled down to the lake, where I promptly, to the great amusement of some tourists standing around, dunked my head, helmet and all. It had become a hot day and my brain was getting a little humid inside my skull.
The cool water brought me back. I'd once again climbed the Monashee Summit! I was full of myself, and my thighs and knees were some relieved, although a mite choked with me.
This was a Saturday. It was a good day to ride the Monashee. Traffic going my way was light. The weather was good, and most of the traffic coming the opposite direction was motorcycles. There was only one chip truck all afternoon, and only one logging truck. Must have seen more than 200 motorcycles all told, but it was not the horror story the day before had been. Making my way down the long slopes on the east side of the Monashee was not the breeze I'd hoped it would be, but it wasn't bad either, although it was a little disappointing not to be able to go down as far as I'd climbed, the Okanagan being at much less elevation than the Arrow Lakes. However, I did manage to make some time and found myself at the turn off the Edgewood by four pm. I stopped in and had a strawberry ice cream cone at the little roadside stand near the junction. When I told the woman what I'd been up to all summer, she loaded that Strawberry cone right up.
My choice was to either go into Edgewood, or over the hill to Plum Hollow, near the ferry landing. I opted for the latter, believing the hill would not be much, and would put me that much closer to the ferry in the morning.
Suddenly, I was climbing four hills at once! The giant ice cream cone had done nothing for my thighs or my knees, and the sugar from it had not given me the kick I'd hoped for. Not even halfway of the 2.5 K hill I was panting. In the end I did the hill in little 100 meter spurts, barely making it to the top after about an hour, then gliding down, then mildly up, before reaching the Plum Hollow turn off.
By this time, shortly after five, my brain had turned to total mush and I set off down the Plum Hollow road like a pick-up truck driver from Alberta! It took about five seconds for the uneven surface to bring me to a grinding hault, and my brain to its senses. I felt if I didn't stop and walk, both Wheels and BoB, and my knees and thighs, were gonna shake so bad they'd never ride again. I slowed down and finally I walked.
Fifteen minutes later, with nearly every thread of energy left in me, I topped the little hill by the campground.
On one side of the road there was a line of five people standing looking at the other side of the road where there were three bears, a black sow and two cubs! I didn't see the bears at first, being more fixed on the people, who were all eyes on me, urging me up the driveway. Almost in harmony, the people started asking me if I was looking to camp, and filling me in on the fact that I was welcome to, but the owners were away though, but no need to worry, because all the facilities were open and there was a good place to pitch a tent, but that place was not on the lake side because: "Look, there's three bears right there!"
Confused, and somewhat over-amped by all the information I was busy trying to absorb, I almost missed the three bears part. When I finally got it, I moved a little quicker up the driveway, pulled in, rounded an RV, set the bike against a picnic table situated on a level grassy spot, then had my first look at the bears.
They were nearly a hundred meters away towards the water, in a small grove of hundred-year-old apple trees the campground owners had decided to leave standing. The Sow was fairly small, maybe five or six feet tall if she stood up, and a few hundred pounds. The cubs looked like big round puppies, between 25 and 35 kilograms each, and black as night.
The people I was talking to were all long term Plum Hollow campers, RVers. Apparently the owners had gone for the season, but had spoken to each and everyone of the campers before leaving, and put them all in charge. Later on another couple showed up, the ones whose RV I'd circumnavigated to get my spot, and assured me that they were in fact the ones who'd been put in charge! They told me it was free for me to camp, because I rode a bicycle, and besides, the owners had told them just to "pocket" any money they collected.
I would have a good dinner, and a long hot shower in the very skookum shower set up, but once again I would get little sleep.
There were a couple reasons for my lack of sleep. One reason was this latest couple, from Cranbrook, who kept me up until midnight talking by the fire, and trying to feed me weird food, like some sort of nuked string bean. Then there was the bears, or more importantly, the human-bear interacting going on in the place, combined with the information that there was also a male black bear around, and he and the sow had been scrapping a few days earlier. The humans were getting pretty close to the sow and cubs, taking pictures, and one guy was actually hanging out near them, tossing them apples and such.
In the morning I would see the big male. He was quite large, maybe eight feet if he stood up, and several hundred kilograms big. He was hanging out by the apple trees too. I would also see signs of a much bigger bear, a Griz, when I rode out later. One of the campers warned me he'd seen the Griz that morning, down the road. I never did see him, but he must have been enormous, based on size of his droppings, which were brown and very human-like compared to the blacks’.
That day was sort of nice. The road was quiet, fitting for a Sunday, and quite clean. I did have a headwind though, and my legs, despite the lovely shower, were still very stiff and uncomfortable. I would cross the ferry, stop in at a local store for some extra food, and ride the 20 K to Burton where, after getting one look at the "Historical Campground," I decided to stay the night.
After talking to a couple I met while circling the grounds, they treated me to a large bowl of their homemade chile, and left me a baggie full of cut cucumbers. The next afternoon, while stopped for lunch, I decided to chase down a handful of granola with these cukes. Then I got out a bowl and put both cukes and granola in it. Try it folks! Cucumber Granola! Sweet!
On top of the donated dinner, I would also cook up a large bowl of beans and quinoa for myself. So I was well fed in my little camp beneath the pines, overlooking Arrow Lake and some sort of river delta. There was a spectacular sunset that night, and some rain, and I once again had a hot shower. I liked it so much I almost stayed another night, but at $13 a night, and a feeling I should continue along, I did.
The next day was equally nice but windy, one of those uphill winds, but not too bad. I stopped a while around noon at MacDonald Provincial Park, which was nice, right on the lake, but mainly designed for big RVs and not all that bicycle friendly. After an hour or two mulling over whether to spend the night, and discovering new foods to combine, I pushed on into Nakusp, arriving shortly after five.
After a quick stop at the grocery, I pedalled over to my friend Mary Ellen's house, which quite abnormally, was a hub bub of activity. Her daughter and son-in-law were there with their two kids, Eli and Aksel, renovating the garage, so Mary Ellen's 18-year-old son could move into it, and out of the house. The inlaws were camped in the yard and there was so much going on that I opted to go camp in the Nakusp Municipal Campground. The campground was nice, treed and quiet, and only cost $10, but had the dirtiest washrooms I've seen in a while. I forwent the shower that night, cooked a pasta dinner, and crawled into bed beneath clear skies at 9 pm.
I slept well for a change, and woke up very groggy to the sound of a nearby log house-building factory. Chainsaw music in the dawning of the day, not my favourite.
Groggy as I was, and barely able to pay attention, I went into my bags and BoB, doing my usual breakfast prep, and inadvertantly knocking my bike over in my clumsiness. I thought nothing of it, and simply picked it back up, growling a bit.
By ten I'd done the whole morning routine, packed up, and headed over to Mary Ellen's, where I'd been invited to do coffee. We had a nice visit, although I spent more time talking to her daughter, and her daughters boys, than I did with Mary Ellen. At about noon I decided to pull out, thinking I'd make Roseberry.
As I left, Mary Ellen said something to me like: "One of these days Will, you're going to ride into the place you want to be and just stop." I laughed, thinking, 'one of these days I'm just going to stop.'
A good hug and I was off. I stopped for a minute where the road headed out of town, then remounted and began the climb. The sky looked a little threatening, but the wind was calm and the day reasonably nice. The road was good, and in a few minutes I was a third of the way up it, a little stiff in the legs, but otherwise up and ready to ride.
Then I felt a familiar thing. It was the sound of my tire rubbing on the bike frame. I looked down to see what I suspected. My tire was rubbing. Hopping off, I walked the bike to a nearby sign post, leaned it against it, and started stripping off the panniers, knowing I would have to turn the bike upside down to fix whatever the problem was.
Up and over went the bike. I gave the wheel a spin with my hand. It promptly stopped! I looked a little closer. A spoke almost took my eye out! It was sheerred, near the wheel. I tried to squeeze it back in, no luck. I went looking for my spoke wrench, no luck. I tried to push the wheel straight again, so I could at least ride the bike, no luck. I realized pretty quick that I was not going to get anywhere, not even back down the hill, unless I could make the wheel turn. I also realized I had neither the technology, the parts, nor the skill, to make the wheel turn.
I quickly accepted I was stuck.
Along came a woman walking towards town. I stopped her.
"Are you going into town?" I asked.
"Yes," she replied.
"Do you know Mary Ellen?"
"She lives in the brown house, yes, I know her."
"Will you be going near there?"
"I'm going home, but I have her phone number."
"Could you call her and tell her I'm stuck up this hill, totally broken down."
"What's your name?"
"Will"
"I will Will," she said, and continued on her walk.
As it turned out, Mary Ellen and one of her friends were heading off to Kelowna that day, and Mary Ellen's daughter was driving with the boys back to Kootenay Lake. I figured, if I could catch them in time, I could get a ride for me and my stuff to the nearest bike shop, in New Denver.
The woman I'd stopped had gone directly to Mary Ellen's, and caught her just as she was leaving for Kelowna. Mary Ellen and her friend drove up, picked me up, took my back to the house, where Mary Ellen’s daughter was still packing to leave. When Mary Ellen and her pal took off to Kelowna, I loaded my crud into her daughters car, and some hours later, we set out for New Denver, where I have been ever since.
Well, basically, I've been in New Denver for three days, but yesterday I took local transit into Nelson where by bicycle pal, super mechanic Darryl, had built Wheels a new wheel. It would cost me nearly $100, but I'm finally done with all the problems I've had with that former wheel since I bought it during a similar emergency in Maastricht Holland last year.
For the past couple days I've been holed up with some friends, actually a gang of women, a dog, a cat and one adorable two year old named Kiera, in a house in beautiful autumnal New Denver. We've been eating lots, telling stories, and all catching up on our sleep. I've even had a hot bath, full of scented oils, and slept in a bed inside the house, out of the weather.
I'm back in the Koots, which is really a little weird because there are parts of me still in Jasper, and Edmonton, and out on the prairie, and still climbing the Monashee, and there is, in fact, very little of me that is actually here! In some ways I'm freaking out a bit too, because my little adventure seems to be drawing to a close, and I really have no idea what on earth I'm going to do with myself if I ever stop riding.
Fortunately, I still have a little riding to do. Tomorrow I'll head out, for my fourth time this year, over Cape Horn. I'll be very interested to see how my legs do because, if'n I'm still climbing all those other hills, Cape Horn might be a lot tougher than it ever was.
Plan to make Winlaw tomorrow, where I hope to visit a few folks, and maybe get a day to think about what my next move will be.
Somewhere in the next few weeks you will all receive what is likely to be the epilog of this adventure, unless of course I keep on rolling which, although improbable, with yours truly at the wheel, is quite possible.
Anyway, hope you're all well and enjoying the ride. More to come, just don't know how much.
Will
PS: Epilog
I was right about the ride over Cape Horn. It would take four hours to do the cape, although I didn't feel so bad. Problem was more wind and rainy weather than anything. It cleared up in Slocan, where I diverted onto the old rail line, which was soft surfaced, but quite lovely, as I rode along in sunset amid the first autumn colours and heaps of fresh bear dung. It would take seven hours to go 50K. Fifty K that felt like I was riding with the brakes on!
When I finally reached Winlaw I looked up my friend Al, whom I found busy in his new store location at the Spicer Center. Al has a book and video store called Earth Spirit, and has spent his summer relocating. For the past few days I've been hanging with him, helping get some odd jobs cleared up, telling stories, sharing meals, and more than a few laughs. Its been a good way to unwind.
This afternoon I was offered a ten day housesit out the back road near Perry's Ridge. It begins this coming Saturday, and I think I'm going to go for it. Lovely place, on ten acres with a forest and river frontage, real peaceful. I figure it will offer me some space and solace to finally catch up on my sleep and some of my writing, and maybe give me a little time to figure out what the hell I'm going to do next.
I'll keep you all posted, but methinks the ride is done for this year.
So that's it, the adventure is over.
Would I do it again?
Maybe, but definitely not right away!
Did I have fun?
Yeah, sort of lots despite all my growling!
Was it worth it?
Yeah, I think so!
Why?
I still ain't sure about that one!
What's next?
I dunno!
Stay tuned.
Will
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