Cana-Indian Guy Cross Canada - Tour Du Canada 2012: Day 11 Golden, BC to Lake Louise, AB – Sunday July 1st, 2012

After a nice rest day and catching up on blog, today was supposed to be a short and a relatively tough day. It was raining overnight and my tent was experiencing condensation so I was a bit chill (4C overnight) and felt a few drops on face. I ended up waking at around 4.45 am and just wiped the tent from inside out to make sure that there wasn’t a leak. In retrospect, even if there was a leak, I probably couldn’t do much about it. Nonetheless, I got a call from my parents early in the morning and had a nice chat with them and then finally woke up and wrapped up the camp. After having an oatmeal breakfast with toast and making some PBJ sandwiches, I set out with Ron, Michael and Keith towards Field, BC.

The destination today was the popular town of Lake Louise which was 85km away from Golden. There was a recommended side trip to the Takakkaw falls and will take extra 14km of climbing one way. As soon as we set out, we were climbing up the trans-Canada and it continued all the way until Field, BC. Since it was Canada day, there were celebrations in the information centre in Field with coffee, cupcakes , cake barbeque etc and to top it off, it was served by local firemen. After eating a cupcake and coffee and taking a few pictures with the Canadian Mounties police, we set out to go towards the falls.

Not everyone joined on the side trip as it was a tough ride up in the mountains to see the falls. After handling a few steep switchbacks, we made it to the falls and it started to rain in that part of the mountains due to heavy condensation. After a long walk to see the falls, I set out in pouring rain towards the bottom as I was getting cold and we still had a big climb up the kicking horse pass. I climbed solo with some music plugged on a safe shoulder of the highway and made it to the top. On the route sheet today there were directions to go to Lake Louise through highway 1a, which was apparently closed since there was a grizzly momma with her cub that were seen. Unfortunately there were no signs or notices indicating that at the entrance, but I had heard the news from the information centre in Field, BC. I rode with Chris and Terry for about 3 km being scared to death of a grizzly attack we reached the great divide. This is the boundary of Alberta and BC and is also the spot where the streams flow either to the Pacific Ocean to west or to the Atlantic Ocean in east (via rivers to the great lakes and via Hudson Bay). After few pictures we rode the rest of the trail, I being completely terrified by a possible bear attack. We got in to camp safely and are set in a bear restricted zone behind a river and an electric fence. After getting in, we heard similar terrified stories from other riders and almost all decided to take the main highway.

Dinner tonight was Mexican rice and upside down stove made cake, since it was Canada day. After finishing dinner, we took a cab to Lake Louise at 8.30 pm and had a walk around the lake. The decision to go late worked out well as all the tourist traffic was gone by that time. After walk, since we still had lot of daylight left, we decided to visit the Chateau and have a cup of coffee and hot chocolate. We reached back to camp around 10.45 pm and I was asleep by close to midnight.