We said goodbye to Vancouver in style, cruising the harbor with Tas (Ali's former housemate) and Scarlett in their little yacht.
It suddenly turned really hot for a few days, and we sweated our way up
the Sea to Sky highway, from Vancouver to Squamish and onwards to Whistler.
Squamish is known for the Chief, a huge monolith (rock), and very popular amongst rockclimbers. A whole different crowd from cyclists, climbers are, and we were amused and also intimidated a little by the crashpads, ropes, shoes, carabiners etc. We just kept things simple, and walked up the Chief via a hiking trail, still challenging and the muscle aches reminded us of the climb for another few days.
The Chief, Squamish, BC
Then onwards and upwards, on the narrow, winding road and with more or less continuous construction sites. Sometimes the drop off the shoulder would be over a foot, and we had to take care not to get too close to either that drop or the thousands of cars making their way to Whistler.
The reason for this influx to Whistler was Crankworx, an anual downhill and slopestyle mountainbike event. Picture a luxurious French ski resort (without the snow), a big hill with a jumpspark and downhill track, a 25000 people crowd, and some of the best downhillers/ slopestylers in the world. We were thrilled watching the slopestyle, where young guys flip and toss their bike into seamingly impossible acrobatic manouvres, always landing back on two wheels (almost always...).
Slopestyle, Crankworx, Whistler BC
We were lucky to be invited by friends of Marty, and camped on their deck for some nights. Good to hear their stories about riding, skiing, hiking, music, travelling and the black bear that had visited their kitchen recently. Sietse organised for us to go on a Ziptrek tour, an exhilarating and beautiful way to see the rainforest from above, zipping at high speed in a harness from tree to tree.
Ali geared up for the Zip-trek
Then one enormous bustrip brought us from Whistler to Jasper, in the Rocky Mountains. We're kind of fighting our way against the seasons, the days already shortening, and as we learned in the past 2 weeks, the cold and snow kicking in.
The Icefields Parkway, also named one of the most beautiful roads in the world, runs about 230 kms from Jasper to Lake Louise. It passes 8 Icefields with some 23 glaciers. And beautiful it was. Little sidetrips brought us to small lakes with colours turquoois and emerald, glaciers hanging of mountains and waterfalls gushing through gorges. On a walk up a pass we saw bighorned sheep smacking their horns together with a loud "bang". We also had our first snow since Alaska, first wet, than dry, leaving the slopes with a thin white blanket.
On the Icefields Parkway, Athabasca Glacier in the background
Big horn rams among the pines
The blue waters of Peyto Lake
We met Ken and Neill, two friendly American cyclists in their fifties, who inspired us with their enthousiastic ways, mixing vodka and gatorade powder for real deal camp cocktails, and with a good outlook on life, friendship and hardship.
Between all these mountainous adventures we indulged ourselves into a 4 day cartrip to Washington State, to see our favourite band, The Dave Matthews Band play at The Gorge. It was mindblowing to see them, playing in this natural amphitheater set against the Columbia River Gorge. A sad but intense concert, for their saxophonist passed away recently.
Dave Matthews Band - Live at the Gorge, Washington state
So it is cold, and we've both caught a decent flu, keeping us in our tent for almost a week. Lucky it's snug and warm inside. But it also makes us ponder if the route we're taking is possible and more so, safe and fun. For now we're trying to regain our strength, and continue down to the USA border and into Montana.
Lots of love
Anna and Ali
