THE CROWSNEST HIGHWAY. CYCLING THE BC3. UP TO MANNING PARK.

August 19, 2019

It's been over fifty years since my first of many trips to British Columbia. Have been to many corners but not this bottom end. 

Seemed like I have been saving this a a winter trip. Many of the regions I'll ride through are homes to a number of ski hills I still need to visit.

Still today up for an adventure, challenge and getting occasionally out of my comfort zone,

here and now I'll pile all of these high,

especially getting way, way out of my comfort zone.

A personal exorcism.

I liken it almost to riding a ten speed bicycle.

I'll find and use gears within myself that I didn't even know I had or would ever use.

I'll yoo-yoo with this guy over the next thirty-six hours.

He was way out of every zone I touched on and more.

(After proclaiming he was going to do in one day what I'll end up doing in two, even with a ride from 

first responders, ...........................

Last time I saw him he was hitchhiking out of the park with a failed bike.)

This hill kept taking and taking every bit I had.

I was prepared to camp most anywhere but at some point I just committed to the summit, which will be my ticket to a relative flat/downhill stretch for the final fifteen kilometres to camp.

My total ride will clock in at sixty-eight kilometres.

Best guess would be about forty K's uphill.

(Ended up being about five and one half hours in the saddle. Would equate to about four and one half hours of climbing. Life in slow motion at six/seven kph)

For an engineered road it had some fairly aggressive pitches, the likes of nine percent for rather long sections.

For all those sad athletes crying on TV that they didn't know that "this" and "that" banned substance was an ingredient in their.....

Here I'm begging for any performance enhancing supplement secretly .......

(haven't gone there till today, 

pounded two energy gels, on top of.......)

With the ups and downs over the day, I will end up cycling up over 5,500 vertical feet.

One of my bigger days ever on a bike, by far.

Editor's note: Girls, remember Sequoia. Thinking that was about 5,000ft/40K's. Yosemite Valley to Tioga Pass. 7,500ft vertical over 100k's over two days, ride into Tahoe.................

With a degree of it being relatively close to the west coast, many have noted that if one cycles across the whole of Canada, 
getting to this spot is one of the most difficult.

EC Manning Provincial Park. 

Coldwater Campground.

Camp was a couple of K's from the store.

Two K's further than I wanted to ride. Had now plenty of water and a mixed pannier of leftovers that just served me fine.

Exalted

Exhausted.