Down the hill to Golden

The last few days have brought about several firsts,

Yesterday, we reached 1000km for the trip. Today, we crossed our first time zone. Tomorrow, we will cross our first provincial border into Alberta.

Our ride to Golden was pretty much the exact opposite of yesterday's ride. In the mountains, what goes up must come down, so after a long 900m climb over 70km to the Rogers Pass summit, we were rewarded today with 80km of almost pure downhill. We probably could have done it yesterday it was so easy, but didn't realize it.

The highway between Revelstoke and Golden has been closed several times over the past few weeks due to mudslides, and the snow sheds that protect the roads have been covered in snow, not allowing us to walk around them as cyclists normally would. As a result, Darryl, a Parks Canada employee, blocked off the highway for us as we went through the snowsheds, then escorted us past the area where the mudslides have been occuring recently. Thanks Darryl!

The scenery was absolutely incredible. On either side of the highway, there were huge snowy peaks, the Purcell mountains according to a map. We couldn't help but stare as we went along the highway, it was pretty breathtaking.

Once in Golden, we found the Kicking Horse Hostel just off the highway, and got a reduced rate for camping outside with use of the indoor facilities. There weren't too many people around, so we decided to watch one of the movies available. Mike got to choose after winning a game of straws, and decided on "Conan the Destroyer" starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was definitely low-budget because they sure didn't pay much for storywriters or screenplay writers...it was absolutely terrible. You know a movie is bad when the guy who chose it falls asleep 30 minutes in, but some of the scenes were so incredibly ridiculous that we got some good laughs out of it.

Tomorrow we'll cross into Alberta, making our way to beautiful Lake Louise on our way to Calgary.
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