Snow Shuffle
Well, I’m out here kids.
My pal Poe dropped me off in a snow bank up on the
Kaslo-New Denver
Road about noon yesterday, Wednesday. It was a warm send off, we’d had
a good visit, despite the snow.
Once the black one was packed up we were off, around
Fish and Bear
lakes like a couple jittery teenagers out on a first date. It was a
first date of sorts, I’d only ridden the dark one a few k with a load
on, and both times I was close by help. Now all of a sudden there was
no driveway to turn up a couple k along, I, we, were on our own.
The jitters kept up until Three Forks, through snow
and grit, past
teeming waterfalls and mounds of slippery snow in a 30 K headwind. It
was there I realized that 90 per cent of the jitter was coming from my
own nervous and muscular system. Ten percent was attributable to the
front wheel, which I’d managed to put on a little lopsidedly!
Shortly before one pm I pulled into the sleepy
village of New Denver,
did a drive by down the mainstreet and took a mental health break in
the park by the beach. There I fixed the front wheel.
Half an hour later I was chugging north, in a head
side wind, as the
day began to dim down and the headwind blew cool northerly. At
Roseberry I ducked onto the Galena trail which took me along an
overgrown sometimes soupy path to the village of Hills, where I popped
back up on the highway and ground up the long climb to Summit Lake.
I was pooped folks. My first day out I’d done over
60 K. There was no
pain but I was a tad delerious and my energy was totally zapped.
Driving by the closed Summit Lake Provincial Park Campground, I saw
beyond the snow covered drive, a favourite thing of mine, an empty
pavillion with a woodstove and a wood supply!
Getting to it was the final challenge of the day. I
was pooped but I
thought, if I can just make it through these two snowbanks and across
that little bridge, I’ll have the place to myself.
Fifteen minutes and 100 meters later, with snow
caked to my axles and
brakes, I made the pavillion, pulled out my stove, put some water on to
boil, gathered a few twigs for the fire, and by time it was dark, lit
the fire then cooked myself a bean dinner.
The black one came through with flying colours. So
did BoB, it was the
packer who needed the pep talk. “Now remember young William, the whole
purpose of the BoB is to carry all the weight. Don’t be carrying the
heavy stuff on the frame. Smarten up by morning!”
My new bivy, with space blanket and high tech
mattress, and old down
mummy bag, reminded me why I was willing to pay nearly $400 for them.
By time I crawled in and zipped up the mosquito screen I was snug as a
bed bug in an old wood frame bed.
Unfortunately, I did not sleep so well. Ten percent
of the difficulty
was the myriad of thoughts racing through my tired head. Another ten
percent was the weird spasms and muscle tremors shaking through my
body. But 80 per cent was the fact I was so warm and comfy in there I
didn’t want to go back out in the cold to fetch a pillow from the BoB!
Nonetheless, at 7:30 this morning I was up like a
rabbit looking for
food. My new stove reminded me why I was willing to pay $100 for it. It
worked like a charm, as it had the night before when it turned snow
into tea water. Now that same snow was making coffee and softening up
the porridge mix.
I wrote three pages in my journal, drank two strong
cups of java, ate a
couple pounds of porridge, watched a gaggle of geese and a pair of
wayward swans land out on the frozen lake, then packed up and headed
off into the fog covered hills to find the highway shoulder, all the
way into Nakusp, swept and cleaned, like they knew I was coming.
I’ve been warmly welcomed here. Had a few neat
chatters on the street,
and met up with an old pal, M, whom I’ve known for about 15 to 20
years. We met up in Banff long ago, and she was one of many people
along the way who helped me give up the booze and turn into a
bikaholic! We had a great visit over tea, and I’m due back there
any moment to eat dinner. Its Sushi night in Nakusp!
For the past few hours I’ve been a land lubber,
slowly meandering the
streets and beach walk, looking up at the mountains, which remain
shrouded in the fog.
Anyway, what’s a snow shuffle? Well that’s when you
muster all your
remaining energy and plow your bike into a snow bank just to get to the
other side, the shuffle part comes the next morning when you shuffle
your feet through the snow bank so you can clear a path your bike and
BoB can pass through without exposing your axles and panniers to
clinging wet snowballs!
Friday I’ll head for Farquier, then the Monashee.
Ooh scary steep and
snow.
Heck, I’m having fun already.
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