Day 5....Up....The Icefields!

Perfect weather, awesome scenery, and then the ascent.......

I remember driving this road, with my parents, and friends over the years and this one part always sticks in my mind (unfortunately, I do not have a picture of it). There is a long turn to the right, that seems to go forever. However, before that, you can look up, way up, and see cars parked on the side of the road and it makes you wonder how the hell they got up there. As I rode up to this section, I too wondered how the hell I would get up there.

By this time we had been climbing for quite a long time and were quite spent. I am pretty good about keeping myself going but at this time, I was happy to have someone else pushing to keep me motivated. The wind on 'the turn' was pretty strong but we kept pushing as we knew we still had plenty of uphill climb ahead of us.

It was a warm day, actually, it felt hot at this point. The ascent to the point where the cars seemed to be parked precariously on the edge of a mountain was still a ways away, and damn, it was steep.

We made it, had a rest, received a few compliments from thsoe who drove up, then headed up a bit more. We basically chose a spot we wanted to get to and pedalled on. Stop, rest, pick a spot, pedal on...repeat. Those days of riding my Balfa up the fireroads in Japan paid off....

One more kilometer!

We reached the Icefield Center, sat around and had a couple of beer(s) and chatted with a German woman who was riding the other way, alone and heading to.....not sure. It felt great to be here, 25 years after.

Aviam and I, although completely bagged decided to start heading down....... We only had a couple of beers and this was over a 'considerable' amount of time. Wilcox pass, a campground , 3.1 kms south of the Icefield Center, seemed way to far to go back to; going downhill was the way to go...

We ended up riding another 20 kms, I think, to Jonas Creek, which should have been named Mosquito Creek, cause holy crap, was there a shitload of them (someone was kind enough to leave us some repellent though.

After hauling our bikes up a walking trail to the tent area, which sucked, we set up camp and made dinner. I again, almost lit the table and surrounding areas up with my brother Michael's stove (which he kindly let me borrow...thanks bro!). Aviam got a kick out of watching me fight with the stove and proudly posed with it later.

I think he wanted to steal it and sell it for a new pair of shoes