Day4 - Tuesdays with Simon

Have I mentioned how smart my cousin Pat and his buddy Goran are?  They turned North at Osoyoos and took "the long way" out of BC, hooking up with Hwy1.  I might have listened to them...  Day4 was HARD.  Woke up in Keremeos and had breakfast at the Crowsnest Bakery - a little place on Hwy3 owned by a couple of German cousins.  Great coffee and AMAZING sausage rolls.  The pastry was light and flaky, the sausage moist and delicious, and none of it greasy at all.  I told one of the owners that they were fantastic and his eyes rolled back slightly as he said "I knoooow..." with a touch of longing in his voice - a true German.  One could tell that he wanted to hide in a corner with the tray and shkoff them all.  :p  I could have stayed there eating sausage rolls and drinking coffee all day.  Instead I capped it at two, stashed a cheese bun for the road, and headed out.  I'd highly recommend that anyone passing through town stop on your way - it's the block just before the flashing red where you need to turn left to stay on Hwy3, right across from the Keremeos paper (N side of the road).

I had a bit of a headwind heading toward the rollers, and stopped to remove my arm/knee warmers and adjust my saddle at the top of the first.  My right knee had been bothering me a little bit so I needed to drop the saddle by about 3/4mm.  Out in the desert it gets warm early.  I'd never ridden the rollers this way before so it was interesting to see how the flow felt different.  The last of them right before Richter was quite steep, pushing me into my full bailout gear.  Then it was on to Richter proper.  Like the rollers, I've ridden this pass a bunch of times - but always in the opposite direction.  I think it's harder this way.  It wasn't a killer climb but I thought it should have been over before it was a few times.  Bombed down the other side into Osoyoos and stopped in Subway for lunch & internet.  Total ride time from Keremeos to Osyoos: 2:35  :)

As I headed out of town I caught a glimpse of a sign that read "Osoyoos Massage Therapy" - hmm, I should stop...  Too late and I was over the bridge and onto what would be my hardest climb of the day.  In the Subway I had asked an RCMP officer if he knew what the road was like heading East - how hilly it was, etc.  He wasn't sure but his partner came over and with a big smile on her face said: "See that mountain right there?  The road goes right over it.  You get a tonne of switchbacks on the way up.  Once you're over it's quite beautiful, though".  She wasn't kidding.  It was hot.  The sun bore down on me and I'm pretty sure I was dripping sweat faster than I could drink.  I had filled all three bottles in the Subway and had some minor concern that I might run out.  With the rocky cliffs, switchbacks and dropoffs, I half expected to see Wyle E Coyote trying to pry a boulder free to fall on me.  Lots of stopping to rest and to drink, and to contemplate the lunacy of what I was attempting.  Many conversations with Simon.  Occasionally there was a cool breeze to gently caress me and lift my spirits; but like a rented companion, her time with me was fleeting and then I was left alone once more.  More climbing.  More stopping.  More resting.  Fuel (Mars bar and a bag of chips at two different stops)  More conversations with Simon.  I climbed that SOB for over 2hrs (actual ride time) before I saw what I thought was the summit, and the road started to head down.  By this time I had left the Okanagan and was into the West Kootenay region.  The change from the Okanagan desert to the Alpine Meadows comes almost instantly, and I saw deer tracks in the gravel by the side of the road.  The road continued to wind and go up.  The pitch wasn't all that steep, but I had just descended several hundred meters so if I was going to go back up again I'd have rather just stayed at my previous elevation, thankyouverymuch.  No such choice, I'm afraid.  Finally I saw a sign that read "Anarchist Summit".  Well finally.  Now I don't know about all the people that wrote about Hope Sloide being the toughest climb on the route out of BC.  Maybe they followed Hwy97 North from Osoyoos, or even Green Lake Road from Keremeos.  Or Hwy1 North from Hope.  But this pass was definitely the most challenging I'd faced this far.  

Bombing down the far side of Anarchist Summit was fun and even though the road wasn't great, I made good time.  Green pastures and fields, huge expanses of forest, tiny towns, and some river who's name I don't know.  I was now in the Kettle Valley, and bombed down into a little town where I saw a sign that read: "fresh espresso / ice cream / wireless".  SOLD!  Of course at 18:20 it was closed, so I settled for a coke at the gas station and my cheese bun.  There I struck up a conversation with a painter who also owns a Brodie (the manufacturer of my bike).  Like a lot of people I've met, this is a trip that he's always wanted to do as well.  He turned out to be a photographer as well as a painter, and wanted to take a picture - so I posed with my bike for a while and he gave me his card so that I could email him and he'd send me copies.  Cool. 

I continued on to Midway (only 19km!) and when I rolled by for some reason I just didn't feel like stopping.  It was well past 19:00 and I'd left Keremeos at 08:40.  Greenwood was just 12km down the road, so I kept rolling.  Naturally that was 12km of rolling hills...  :p

Made Greenwood by ~20:00.  A solid day.  I had to pass up a few excellent looking "stealth camping" spots because I only had 1/2 a bottle of water left, and needed a lot more than that to make it through the night - so after stopping in town proper for some recovery fuel I ended up in the most ghetto motel in which I've ever set foot.  I kept my flip-flops on full time, including in the shower.  Great recommendation by the owner of the quik-e-mart.  Ah well - it was cheap.  :p


Stats

Total Ride Time: 7:54
Total Elapsed Time: 11:20
Total Mileage: 134.7
Avg Speed: 17
Max Speed: 71.3


Breakfast! (I stashed the cheese bun for later and went in for another cup of coffee and another sausage roll)

Spotted Lake, at the top of Richter Pass

The base of Anarchist Pass

A little further up (but nowhere near as close to the top as I had hoped)

Looking down toward Osoyoos (man, this thing just keeps on going...)

And going...

Proof that I'm having the time of my life...

And yet this damed road STILL goes up...

West Kootenay Boundary!

Goodbye Okanagan desert, hello Alpine Meadows!

FINALLY - the summit!

In the Kettle Valley

More of the Kettle Valley