Day6 - a planned detour, and an unplanned early stop

I opened my eyes and looked at the clock.  07:20.  I smiled, and rolled over.  Not today...  At around 08:30 I woke up and thought about what I'd do today.  At ~09:30 I finally got out of bed and decided to start the day - for real this time.  My clothes were still wet.  Not soaking wet, but wet enough.  Damn - that kind of puts a damper on things...  I contemplated my route.  Sticking with Hwy3 would have me going over two passes on my way to Creston - the second of them being the 2nd highest paved highway in Canada.  The alternate route is an extra 60km out of the way - up one side of the lake, a ferry ride across, and back down the other side of the lake.  Colin, who grew up in Cranbrook and knows the area had strongly encouraged me to take the long way 'round.  There was a significant part of me that still wanted to stay on Hwy3 and "hit every pass", but my legs were dead.  Not sore when I woke up, just dead.  That wasn't really the problem, however.  My concern wasn't so much making it over the 2nd pass, but having another storm blow in and catch me 1/2 to 3/4 of the way up - leaving me with no shelter and no options.  That would SUCK.  I consulted my map, packed up my stuff, put on my wet kit and hit the road in search of breakfast.  Actually, I hit Google in search of breakfast, then I hit the road.  Breakfast was a forgettable affair.  A sorrily understuffed turnover and a greasy sausage roll, washed down with an okay cup of coffee.  I had also picked up a package of cookies, 3 for $3 and a can of Coke to fuel the first part of my journey.  Nelson was ~50km North, and the ferry terminal another 30km North of that. 

In bypassing the two major climbs today, I still did not get a "flat" route.  In any province outside of BC or Alberta these climbs would have rated mention in a guidebook.  The road rolls steadily and constantly the whole way - with some of the hills being a pretty solid effort.  I'm pretty sure that I didn't save any time going this way but it *might be easier on my overall level of fatigue - which has been moderately high of late.  The thing about climbing a major pass is that even though you spend 3-5hrs at 6-10kph, you travel an equal distance down the other side between 35 and 70kph - so the overall speed at which you traverse the pass is relatively high.  Proportionally one's climbing speed might be only a quarter of one's flatland speed - but the actual diference is only ~15-20kph.  Compared with one's descending speed, which is typically between 45 and 70kph, that's 20-55kph faster than flatland speed.  Chosing this route would almost certainly be slower.  After the past night however, the threat of a storm blowing in was very much in the forefront of my mind.  Colin had also emphasized that "this is the only FREE ferry in BC" - how could I pass that up?

I made Nelson in about 2hrs and the ferry terminal in a touch under 4.  That last 20 odd k seemed to stretch on forever, and the road reminded me a bit of Northern Ontario cottage country.  I made it to the ferry with enough time to grab a cheeseburger before boarding, and then in a rare departure for me, went upstairs to sit down and chill out.  Normally I like to stand on deck, but I didn't want to get cold and stiff.  Rolled off the ferry and a nice gal at the restaurant filled my bottles for me.  Up a STEEP hill that was a lot longer than it needed to be, and I was back in (heavily) rolling terrain.  My plan was to make Creston and stealth camp, so I pulled into a gas station and filled a 2L dromedary bag.  Less than 6km down the road the storm announced that it was on its way - and FAST.  I pulled over at a corner store to pull on my rain gear and the rain began to fall.  The skies were black, and the wind was picking up.  This was exactly they type of weather and fast moving storm that had prompted me to take this route rather than going over Kootenay Pass on Hwy3.  They had a campsite there so I paid for a spot and set up my tarp STAT.  I had everything up fairly quickly, and stood under the tarp watching the storm over the lake.  Within 45min the storm had blown over and it was sunny and beautiful once more.  Uh... Okay...  Since I had paid for the site I decided to just chill out for the evening and get some rest.  The real storm did hit later, and quite hard - but I was all tucked in and safely out of harms way by then.  Not exactly what I had planned, but it was a decent day in the saddle. 

Stats:

Total Elapsed Time: 6:30
Actual Ride Time: 4:44
Distance Traveled: 95.8km
Average Speed: 20.2
Max Speed: 61.7


Breakfast was mediocre at best...

If I stop there, would I ride faster?

Hwy 3A, North of Castlegar

Not what I expected to find in Downtown Nelson...

Short break on the way to the Ferry

Kootenay Lake

Chillaxin' at the ferry terminal

Lunch!

The other side of the lake...

Camp:

My dinner companion...

Not unhappy about my decision to stay

Views from "the best campsite on the lake"

I wouldn't normally post pictures of myself "in bed", but just to dissuade readers from the notion that I might be cold or uncomfortable...

 

I leave you with the music to which I fell asleep, and awoke

http://vimeo.com/12892482