Day 16 - Mighty Golden Boy

After my first day off I was eager to get back onto the road again. I was becoming accustomed to traveling every day and it felt strange not to. I had intended to be up by 4am but a few custom snooze alarms pushed that to 7am. Still early enough to avoid any trouble I'm sure.

The ride out of town was one long hill called Townley street until I finally connected with the TCH again. I rode along the highway past many snow capped mountains up and down small hills and through the south end of Revelstoke national park. It was a decent day, warm but not brutally hot. I didn't have to stop as much as I had the last week or more in the heat. Eventually I was in Glacier national park. The whole time I watched the river that followed the road and noted the water went opposite my direction. A Sure sign of hills ahead.

It had been 65km and I still had not encountered any overly difficult hills. I stopped into a camp site in Glacier and refilled my bottles as a gentleman told me the hill does indeed start very soon. Sure enough a few minutes after leaving the site I had to kick it into lowest gear and slowly roll up the hills and through a few tunnels, stopping often for pictures of the looming mountains. In no time I was 1330m up atop Rogers Pass, admiring the mountain up ahead and checking out the little information center.

Having overestimated the difficulty and seen now that the roads were decent, I somewhat regretted taking yesterday off. All I could do today was make up the time, so I started the decent down Rogers Pass. It was a speedy run around gentle bends and through tunnels with generous shoulders with massive jagged mountains moping by slowly as I went. Once the downhill was spent I was left in the north end of Glacier and to leave the park area I had to climb a hill that rose along a straight of mountains I had just pass through.

After the climb I was out of Glacier park and the sun was starting to make it's escape behind the western mountains. I had passed my goal of 100 km so I started looking for places to camp. Nothing looked too appealing and I wanted a warm meal. Golden was another 45 km so I said shag it and kept going.

I was getting a little weary as the last while out of Glacier had been gradual hills and I'd have another decent stretch to go. I ended up having one extra bottle of water than I had thought so I took a quick break and mixed up some Gatorade and drank most of it. I also figured I'd give "Justice" a listen as I made my way to Golden. They are a french electronic duo I'd been told about and I needed a good tune to push me.

I set off again with the crazy french electronic music going and the hills ended almost immediately after. I coasted down the other end for quite a while, making great time as the land eventually leveled out and I resumed a regular pace. It was another 20 km to Golden and my shadow was growing taller. It looked like Manute Bol riding a velocipede before it eventually vanished entirely. It was a flat ride mostly into town from here and the mountains stretched on from both horizons to my south. They looked like a giant row of jagged teeth and the sky was red behind them.

Eventually in town I arrived to a strip of motels, gas stations, and fast food joints. After a terrible meal at McDonald's I was able to locate a municipal camp ground shortly before 12am and quietly rolled in hoping to avoid the fees. I made camp and slept a good sleep once again.