After leaving Dawson Creek without finding James Van Der Beek, much to my disappointment, I headed south to Wembley, Alberta. This was my first real day having to deal with the smoke from the wildfires raging further west from me.
I had hoped to make it to Grande Prairie that day but breathing in the smoke and the allure of a dinosaur museum in Wembley, just 20 km shy of GP, were enough to get me to stop a bit early. The museum was really cool and had a lot of interactive exhibits especially for a small town museum. Kat if you are ever passing through you better stop and check it out! I spent the next day in GP relaxing and letting my lungs recover from the previous day’s smoke inhalation, i.e. hot tub was calling my name.
By this point I was getting skeptical of my chances of riding through Jasper and Banff, now experiencing smoke for a few days, but I decided to continue riding south in hopes of better weather and luck that the air would be clear. The first day out of GP was nice, mostly uphill but nothing compared to the mountains I had already ridden. The air was clear and I made it to Kakwa Park and made camp for the night. I had planned to make the 180km to Grande Cache in two days which was looking like it wasn’t going to be a problem. Queue the menacing dum dum dum music to go with my decision to bring no extra food provisions. I woke up the next morning to an even smokier atmosphere, wind strong out of the south, hill in front of me. Shit. I had to trudge on as I didn’t pack enough food to spend another night out here. The first 40 km were hell, pure fucking hell. Visibility was more or less nothing cause the heavy smoke. I had to pretty much push my bike up any hill cause I wasn’t getting enough oxygen. I started getting dizzy from the smoke and also nauseous. I vomited once which sucked cause I would have liked thew energy from the food I just expelled from my stomach. A nice man who worked out there for the energy company gave me some granola bars which would serve as my dinner that night, without it I would have only had tea. The next day I had two energy bars left for the 30km into Grande Cache, the last bit was a 3.5km climb at 8% grade, fun! I spent the day in town doing laundry for the first time since leaving Tok, Alaska, eating everything and then heading out of town top make camp by the lake.
I decided to bike to Hinton to make my final decision about whether or not I was going to ride through the parks the following day; it was a pretty long ride and the last 3 hours were in the pouring rain. My shoes were water logged but they acted like a wet suit keeping my toes warm! I was told about a free camping spot near the river called RC Fliers and I decided to head there after the rain stopped. The people told me it was right in the river valley. It was not. It was apparently like 5km past the river on this shitty road that would give the Dalton a run for its money in regards to quality. I saw a few RVs and turned it. This was not RC Fliers it turns out but it was the best wrong turn I have made! I met these amazing people whom invited me to their fire, fed me, boozed me, and are all around cool people. I spent two nights there before making the difficult decision not to head into the parks because of the smoke. I was sick of not having good air to breath.
The next few days were spent putting a lot of distance behind me. It’s amazing how far you can go when you are generally going downhill gradually with the wind at your back after biking in the mountains for a few months! While the scenery is lacking, I do have the added motivation of seeing friends and family again in a few weeks that makes it worth it. I do find myself dreaming of being back in Alaska or the Yukon, being just one woman and her bicycle, alone in the vastness of the northern mountains.