Glacier-Banff-Jasper National Park Tour with Bicycle Adventures - Day 6, July 7, 2023

This day we headed out from Lake Louise to formally enter the Columbia Icefield Parkway. A big road but cyclists have almost an entire lane of really excellent pavement for cycling. We are heading today to The Saskatchewan River Crossing for lodging - this is by the N Fork of the Saskatchewan River which flows into Hudson's Bay...ultimately. It seems almost all of the drainages up here go in that direction including the Bow River (by Banff which flows to Calgary!), and the Athabasca River which we will see tomorrow.  Along the highway there were some wildlife overpasses similar to what we have put in at Snoqualmie Pass in I-90 in Washington.  We never saw a dead deer or similar due to a car interaction so I guess it works pretty well.

The road had some interesting switchbacks which we navigated with ease. We always seemed to be by water whether it was a lake or a river segment.

We stopped by Peytoe Lake which was an incredible shade of turquoise.....amazing....apparently due to the specific silt load in the water and not due to any chemical solutes.

Our riding in the afternoon had continued wide vistas and awesome mountains as we approached our hotel for the trip at The Crossing.

 

Our guides, Paxton and Jenna! 

 

 

Glacier-Banff-Jasper National Park Tour with Bicycle Adventures - Day 5, July 6, 2023

 Today was a rest day so I wanted to see some things but didn't want to overdo it.  I went up to and hiked around the shores of Lake Louise and then (because we missed the bus by about 1 minute) three of us hiked back down to the hotel. In the afternoon, some of the folks were going to go to Banff and wander about.....I was well over 16K steps by noon and decided that if it was going to be a rest day, then I should really make it a rest day!  So I did - the afternoon nap did me good!

With Kety who took many of the pictures of me on the trip!  Thank you!

Glacier-Banff-Jasper National Park Tour with Bicycle Adventures - Day 4, July 5, 2023

 Today we shuttled from Waterton up to Banff for the next leg.  Along the way we stopped at the Little Apple Cafe and Bakery in Longview - a real gem of a bake shop in the middle of nowhere!  Cinnamon rolls were each big enough for a family of four.....of course, I ate all of mine.....  I will need to bike harder this afternoon! 

Our route was a short but hilly ride from Muleshoe outside of Banff to the Lake Louise Inn where we will be for two nights as the next day is a rest day.  Not a long ride but somewhat hilly.....and plenty of bear sightings along the road!!

Yeah, that is me in the middle!

Glacier-Banff-Jasper National Park Tour with Bicycle Adventures - Day 3, July 4, 2023

 On this the American Independence Day, we headed out from the US at St Mary in Montana to end up at Waterton NP in Canada where we'll be staying in the Prince of Wales hotel.  The latter is an iconic postcard picture of the Canadian National Parks. As the pictures show, the views were spectacular. And, yeah, we saw a number of bears...pretty common up there.

Note my patriotic socks!!

 

 

 

Glacier-Banff-Jasper National Park Tour with Bicycle Adventures - Day 2, July 3, 2023

 Today we were up early and met at 5:15am with our luggage as we will be shuttled for an early morning breakfast at Lake MacDonald Lodge....and then we climb the Going to the Sun Road up to Logan Pass, an epic and storied climb!  I am the first one on the road which starts out as gravel due to some road works in the Park....but within a mile or so, it becomes pavement and will remain so for the rest of the day.  The wider tires on my ebike make this section less daunting than it would have been a normal road bike!

My strategy with the ebike is to ride it without power and shift through the gears as needed. When I get to the lowest gear and I start to pedal squares, then I add the lowest power assist level....and then when that isn't enough help, I add one more level of assist, and so forth potentially up to the 5th level of assist.  It turns out most of the time, when I needed assist, I could stay in the lowest level but today's climb found me with the second level of assist in play quite a bit.....but no higher level of assist was needed. There are 5 battery levels indicated, I presume they are 100-80% (5 lights showing); 80-60% (4 lights showing); 60-40% (3 lights showing); 40-20% (2 lights showing); and 20-0% (1 light showing). Actually when the power gets too low, it shuts down the power assist level and flashes red lights (at least this is what I was told as I never got to that lower level of battery assist but I think Kety did at least one time). 

My power management strategy worked great as I just went from 4 lights to 3 lights as I reached the top of Logan Pass....so I probably still had about 60% battery left for a long downhill run where little to no battery was needed and I ended up I would guess with over 50% battery left at the end of today's ride. 

The scenery and experience was amazing.  Definitely better to do on a bike than a car. We had a fair amount of traffic but they all seemed pretty polite to me and I never felt any concern about sharing the road with them.  You had to be at the Pass by 11 am per Park Rules and all but two of us accomplished that (they got our Van to shuttle bump them up to the Pass for the last 2 or 3 miles, so they were close to making it anyway!).   All in all this was a great day of riding and experiencing!!

On the descent...