Jeff's Alaskan Bike Trip 2010

A change in the trip planning occurred today. The original plan had us going to Edmonton, then to Jasper National Park. We went a more direct route. We left Grande Prairie and headed to Grande Cache. It's not a primary road, but a secondary road. It was 110 miles of joy. We were riding out of the plains and back towards the mountains. We passed the Windall Source Station. Any engineer could run this power plant. The plant was on our left with rail tracks and water behind it. To the right was a mountain of coal they trucked over top of the road to the plant. Those boys didn't want for nothing.


There is alot of logging along these roads. I saw a sign that you should not pass the logging trucks as a log may roll off and hit you. This signs smells of Insurance companies and defense lawyers. Are they saying if a log comes off the truck you had best not be passing the truck at the time or no liability? WOW!

The entire turned out to be a day of extremes. We had extremely long climbs, descents and curves. We rode back up into the mountains in Jasper National Park. Previously we rode on one side of the mountains. Now we rode between them. The tops of the mountains were chilly and so were the canyons. At one point I felt the temperature drop significantly and felt a cross wind. When I looked over my right shoulder, there was a glacier. The wind swept right over it and down to us. It was instant air conditioning.

Entering the north end of Jasper National park, we instantly saw animals. The elk grazed right up by the road. I can't believe the stupidity of some people who got really close to get their picture taken. Not this guy, I stayed 4X away. We saw more mountain goats, but a different type. Lots of people stopped and got in the lake at the beginning of the park. It didn't look thrilling.

Upon arriving at the camp grounds at Lake Louise, we were informed that all 206 tent sites were full. We were directed to a secondary site to stay for free. As we picked our site, John took a relief break on a tree. Having finished, he called me over. Yes, that's bear scratchings on that tree. We also saw some hair in the pine tree branches next to the tree. The supervisor bicycled over to confirm bears are in the area. We have no food so we should be good. Right?

Got wish my sister happy birthday today. All you need to know is she is older than me.
Tomorrow we cross the border. Glacier National Park is up next. We are only 50 miles short of the prior planned course of action. Stay tuned, we have other planned route changes coming.