Brass Monkeys

Oh.  My.  God.  I have never had a colder night's sleep in my life.


Before leaving on this trip, southern Ontario has been receiving summer-like weather for some time and clearly, I've become used to it.  Since most of my trip is to be in the southern United States, I planned for warm weather clothing and I bought a warm weather sleeping bag.  Depending on who I talked to this morning, the overnight temperature was somewhere between 1C and 4C.  I must've woken every 15 minutes with the cold.


By the time 7:30 came around I decided that I wanted a hot shower more than I wanted to sleep.  So up I got grabbed my towel and started my usual early morning "zombie-walk" to the showers.  I was suddenly surprised when I realized I was about 20 feet from a great big elk. "Uhhh.... hey buddy?"   (I didn't take my camera to the shower so you'll have to trust me.)


After warming in the shower I decided I had better pack up the camp quickly while it was dry - rain was in the forecast not only in Banff but all the way to my planned destination of Sicamous BC.  I figured rain gear, and the full-face helmet were in order for the day.

Tunnel Mountain Lookout, Banff

The roads and scenery were wonderful. I pretty much stuck to the Trans Canada and went by Lake Louise, Golden, Rogers Pass and Revelstoke before arriving in Sicamous (just over 400km).  But the weather suuuuucked.

Lake Louise

Check out the rock cut

It rained about 70% of the ride, ranging from a light mist to heavy rain, and sometimes rain mixed with a little bit of wet snow.  As if the wet wasn't enough, it was cold - it seems BC hasn't had what Ontario has in terms of warm weather - there's still tons of snow on the ground at Rogers Pass!

This is actually at Lake Louise.  Rogers Pass was

worse and much colder - where's my snowmobile?

Once I got through to Revelstoke, the weather improved and the ride was much more enjoyable.  Before arriving in Sicamous, I stopped at Craigellachie, the location of the Last Spike.  Riding through these mountains, you can really appreciate the monumental task it was to build the railway, across the country and especially through the Rockies.

Tomorrow I am likely going to go south through the Okanagan Valley.  I'm told they get very little rain there and I hope it's warm!