Great Divide Mountain Bike Route Day 3 & 4

Monday July 27th, 63 miles and 3900 accumulated vertical feet up.

Woke this morning to very light rain but the skies looked as though it was going to be genuinely raining today. I packed up in a hurry, nobody else in the campground was up yet, got down to the GDMBR early.

The route carried me down a wide sandy gravel road most of the day, there was about 10 miles of good pavement in the middle of the day. Yes well unfortunately I was correct about the rain, it came down for about 30 minutes, turned that sandy gravel road into an ice skating rink, I was slipping around pretty good. No problems, the rain stopped and the road became pavement..

Embarras River
That’s Disturbing
Pavement and more unbelievable views
Brian from Europe, flew to Calgary and got on the GDMBR in Canmore, going north and then west and then south to Moab, Utah and flying home from Salt Lake (4 months to get ‘er done)
Generally I am traveling through managed timber lands and this type of sign appears often
This guy’s riding along
Lovett River
Beautiful lake with Five ducks
Ducks
This guy stopped when he saw me, he’s a traveling nature photographer, he offered me some drinks and snacks and we chatted for a bit
Down hill for a bit 😄
Camp!

About ten minutes after Jenny called during the rain (somehow I had 3 bars of 3G cell service generally I can’t get a phone call at all and if I do, even standing dead still, it disconnects in a few seconds) I saw a beautiful chubby Black Bear running along the tree line on my right side— no pic!

A young moose jogged across the road about 300 feet in front of me later in the day— no pic!

I’m seeing lots of deer.

Stopped today at the Brown Creek Provincial Recreation Area— very nice small camp ground, no services, not even water, I need to filter from Brown Creek, also got a very good bath in this creek just before a wonderful dehydrated Butternut Squash Dahl dinner😀. It’s 8:30 about 60 degrees, breezy, I’m on my back playing with this WordPress JetPack editor & I can hear the young family of 4 in the next site over enjoying a wonderful evening. There’s a couple of campfires going around the campground. Very pleasant end to a great day of bike riding!

Tuesday July 27th, 27 miles and 2130 accumulated vertical feet up.

Got a late start this morning because I had only planned to go about 25 miles to a TOWN called Nordegg. Town is a very generous term for this place. So here’s the thing, there is a rather large residential neighborhood of nice seasonal rentals just north of town, in town there is Gas station that is also a laundry, public pay shower, rental office for about 10 small hiker/biker cabins, a convenience store a nice restaurant, and a well appointed gift shop, then across the street a 130 room 1950’s style motel — I’m in room 115, got the senior discount!!!

By the way the short ride today was uneventful.

So I pulled straight into the restaurant leaving my bike leaning against a picnic table in the shade, food was brought out and instantly this wonderful older woman came at me with all the questions….

Then she sent the owner out — his son in law is a big biker, he continues to question me & make recommendations about where to go next in town. Go next door and see Celina my daughter she’ll maybe get you a hiker/biker cabin and go to our convenience store attached to the gas station for groceries…. Celina’s cabins are full, she offers to let me stay at her house (her husband is a Warmshowers Host) — she calls, no that won’t work so she calls the hotel across the street, sure Rayleine will save me the last room and I get the senior discount it’s only $121.00 in Canoock Bucks that’s about $72 US. Now I walk over & get my laundry done, Celina has dehydrated dinners in her store, I buy 4 then I get carry out dinner at the restaurant and beer and back to the laundry. Now I just got a call from Celina’s dad he’s 69 and rides also, he’s meeting me at the hotel restaurant for breakfast at 7. This will be great 👍

Lots of hills today!

Looking down into the Blackstone River valley
Find the fly fisherman I don’t think his name is Waldo
Beautiful
I saw horse prints on the side of the road coming up out of that valley, at the top this girl was just standing there, she was so friendly, some dude in a van stopped and asked what was up, he had phone service and called some wildlife guy who said he would come out there and do what he could do, I left and dude said he would wait
Mare & unemployed Dude from Ontario??
Rusty you need a few of these
Many of these Magpies here, this one helping me write this blog.

I’ll let you know what happens at breakfast in my next post, Good Night all!


Comments

2 responses to “Great Divide Mountain Bike Route Day 3 & 4”

  1. Great pics! I am enjoying the stories

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  2. Wow what an incredible experience you are having!! Too bad about Scott: hope he can join you later!

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