| Randolph Bruce, an Invermere businessman, persuaded the
Canadian government and Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) to build a road linking the
Columbia River Valley to Calgary so that western produce, especially apples, could
get out to eastern markets. Construction of Highway 93, starting in Radium Hotsprings
and heading to Castle Junction began in 1911, but soon stopped when World War I started.
Eventually the road was completed by the federal government in exchange for title to a
strip of land on either side of the route. In 1920, this land was set aside as Kootenay
National Park. The highway was finally completed in 1922, and the official ribbon-cutting
ceremony was held at Kootenay Crossing in 1923; a plaque marks the spot.
Ironically, it was subsequently discovered that the Invermere area was too cold for apple orchards. |
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Highway 93 is 105 kms long and crosses two mountain passes, Vermilion pass, near Castle Junction, and Sinclair pass, near Radium Hotsprings. It is an extremely beautiful, yet remote road with only one business establishment located approximately in the middle - the Kootenay Lodge with a small restaurant, store, and a few cabins. There are no phone lines anywhere along the highway, and no cellphone access. The only means of contact with the outside world is an emergency 2-way radio located at the Lodge. Travelers cannot even pick up radio stations along the way. The Kootenay National Park is home to an abundance of wildlife including more than 150 species of birds, rocky mountain bighorn sheep, mountain goats, elk, mule and whitetail deer, moose, black bears, coyotes, and a few rarer species such as grizzly bears, wolves, and wolverines. |
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And Highway 93, through the Kootenay National Park, made up 1/3 of my 600K brevet. My 600K brevet began at 6:00 am, on Saturday June 17th. My father and I had driven the 150 kms into Calgary, had breakfast at the starting point Tim Hortons, and then I set off. The route was an out-and-back from Calgary to Cochrane, Canmore, Castle Junction, Radium Hotsprings, Edgewater, Fairmont, and back to Calgary. |
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| The first 100 kms of the route to Canmore passed uneventfully and fairly quickly even though I was up against the usual prevailing west wind, and even though I have the impression that Hwy 1A from Cochrane to Canmore is an overall gradual ascent. The last time I rode this highway, I actually stopped to check my bicycle to see if something was the matter with it. This time I resisted the urge to do the same thing. |
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| I had lunch just outside of Canmore, cycled past Banff, and onto the Bow Valley Parkway. Just as I got onto the hilly Parkway, I looked up and noticed that it was snowing in the peaks, and that rain clouds surrounded me. Fortunately though, I only ended up encountering a few drops of rain along this section. |
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| At Castle Junction, I dropped a number of clothing items off in my father’s car, figuring I would not need them. Then, dressed in a long-sleeved polypro, long-sleeved Marino wool, nylon windbreaker vest, shorts, and tights, I set off again. Up till that point, my father had never been too far away from me, but now he was driving straight through to Radium to book a motel room, and then would be returning to check on me. And so I started that very remote Highway 93 knowing I would be on my own for the next 2 hours or so. |
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| As I topped the 5-km climb to the summit of Storm Mountain - Vermilion Pass, I realized that handing over my rain jacket had been a mistake. What had been a clear blue sky was quickly clouding over, and the temperature was dropping! I knew the descent into the river valley would be very chilly so I rummaged through my handlebar bag and found mini-gloves for under my cycling gloves, and wristbands which I had put in there at the last minute. I have to say that those wristbands were incredible … they kept the cold air from blowing up my sleeves thus keeping my arms warm. They also kept my hands warm by covering my wrist pulse point. |
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| On that descent, it not only rained, but also produced something that looked like
miniature hail or ice pellets ... cold and somewhat painful!
Once I got nearer the bottom though, the sky cleared again and I enjoyed the rest of the way to the Kootenay Lodge (a.k.a. Vermilion Crossing). In fact, I flew there much faster than I thought I would, averaging about 30 km/h through that section. It helped that the general terrain was downhill, and that there was no wind. I stopped at the little store there to get something to eat and as I stood there, my father drove by. I ran across the parking lot waving my arms madly in the air, but he did not notice me and kept going. I did, however, attract the attention of a number of tourists who kept their distance from me after that!! As I stood there debating about waiting for him or continuing to ride, another storm blew in, and so I tucked Machak under the awning of the store and waited it out inside where it was warm. I stayed at the Kootenay Lodge for nearly an hour before I decided to get going again as a brilliant rainbow lit the sky. |
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This time I rummaged through the little clothing bag I was carrying on my rack to see what I might have in it. I discovered my helmet cover, rain gloves, headband, balaclava, and a sleeveless jersey. I donned them all and set off in the light drizzle. It wasn’t long before I caught up to the storm and ended up riding in the rain for about half an hour. Then, moments after the storm cleared, my father, with the car containing my rain jacket, caught up to me. |
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| I was only about 30 kms out of Radium at this point, so he went back to the motel there to watch the hockey game and I continued on. The road is quite flat after Vermilion Crossing, which is lovely after all the climbing. I would have to say that the 60 kms in that section (30 kms out and 30 kms back) are the only true flat parts of the ride. But then that all ended and I began the climb over Sinclair Pass. |
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| It was here that I started the low point of my ride. The climb is not that bad - about an 8% grade that goes on for about 8 kms in total - but for some reason I really struggled with it, and about halfway up, I started feeling incredibly nauseated. Thoughts of my DNFs on my previous two 600K brevets (last year) played through my mind, and I wondered why on earth I was out there doing this again. I knew I would only be at about 260 kms when I arrived in Radium, and would still have another 340 kms to go. I knew the night section was still ahead, and I don’t enjoy cycling at night as much as I used to. I knew I would get very little sleep at Radium before I would have to return, and climb everything I had descended on the way out there. I knew I shouldn’t be thinking about things like all that, and that I should just focus on getting to Radium … but the mind has a lot of time to think out there. |
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I arrived in Radium in good time, earlier than I had expected - in the middle of another rain shower, with another brilliant rainbow. After a brief stop at the motel where I turned down pizza for a can of Ensure ... which sat uneasily in my stomach for some time ... I set off for the brief out and back to Edgewater. Every little lump out there felt like a mountain, and then, despite the approaching night and cooling temperatures, I felt uncomfortably hot. I continued to feel hot for most of the rest of the ride, which is very unusual for me when I cycle. The next part of the route took me back through Radium again and up another long hill toward Fairmont. I wish I could have done this section in the daylight because I would have loved to have seen more of it. I would have also loved to have a better view of the road because the shoulders were in rather rough condition. However, as it was, the sky never got completely dark, and I had a bit of a glow from the setting sun all the way out to Fairmont, where I arrived about 11:30 pm. |
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I was still struggling with the ride on the way out to Fairmont, but along the way I thought about my very good friend Rowan, in Australia, who had gone through all sorts of effort and difficulties to get to his brevets so he could qualify for the BMB, and so that we could ride it together. And here I was with the luxury of support on my 600K! I figured that the least I could do was to put a bit of effort into my ride and finish it ... instead of just giving up. Those thoughts, and the fact that I passed the halfway point, perked me up and I arrived back in Radium feeling quite good. Another can of Ensure, a 2.5 hour nap, and we were on our way again. I’ve learned something from previous rides ... I can consume food before I go to sleep, but when I wake up after my “naps” on these rides, I cannot eat anything for an hour or two. I’ve tried with bad results in the past, so I know better now. |
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Dawn along Highway 93 was breathtakingly stunning. Words cannot describe it ... even photographs could not capture the beauty. Dawn on Highway 93 has to be experienced ... the mists over the river in the valley, the sun lighting up the mountain peaks - glowing white snow, brilliant greens, golden rocks, the pinks and purples of the sky ...... I felt energized! I finally felt like I really could finish this ride! |
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| My energy faded a bit just before the Kootenay Lodge and my father and I stopped at the restaurant there for a cup of coffee. It is a lovely place - a log cabin with very friendly staff. I needed to do something “normal” just then, like having a cup of coffee while sitting in a chair at a table, and I needed that coffee! |
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And then I began the climb to the top of Vermilion pass. The lay of the land ascends for about 35 kms, but the real climbing is the last 15 kms before the descent into the valley on the other side. I shot down the other side right into Castle Junction, slowing for the wooden bridge across the Bow River and stopped there to get myself something to eat. While there, I met a cycletourist who was on his way from Montana to Alaska. He appeared very cold, and I couldn’t help but think that it wasn’t going to get any warmer going the direction he was headed. He also told me that he was beginning to think he was crazy ... I just nodded and smiled. I could completely understand and relate to that feeling! |
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About 15 kms out of Canmore, Machak started to ride strangely ... as though the rear of the bicycle was having trouble holding a line. I decided to stop and check and sure enough, my rear tire was about half flat. After pumping it up again and riding a few more kms, and then pumping it up again and riding about another km, I finally decided to call my father to let him know what the situation was. He appeared on the scene, changed my tire for me, I rode off and ...... BANG!! The tube exploded. Another tire and tube later and I was on the road again, flying down into Canmore with a wonderful tailwind. |
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I continued to have that tailwind almost to Cochrane. On the one hand it was very welcome - my speed increased and my effort decreased (always helpful at 500+ kms into a ride), but on the other hand, there is a 30 km section of the road between Canmore and Cochrane that is absolutely horrible, so I couldn’t take full advantage of the wind. The road is narrow and windy, and I’ve seen gravel roads in better shape. It is full of large and deep potholes, and incredibly rough pavement. All the weekend tourists must have decided to return home that way, because there was constant traffic passing me, often consisting of wide RVs and SUVs pulling trailers with boats and things. With the wind pushing me along at 30+ km/h, I was bouncing all over the road and my contact points took a beating. A few times I also thought Machak was just going to disintegrate underneath me. |
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Shortly after I got onto good roads again, another storm in the distance caused the wind to change to a headwind, and I fought to get my speed over 14 km/h. I started to struggle mentally with this section, knowing that I had another large hill to deal with and then the rest of the way into Calgary, probably against the wind. Just as I began to feel a bit down, I looked up and saw the most unusual rainbow in the sky. It was extremely bright, completely horizontal, quite wide, and rippled much like the aurora borealis does. I've never seen anything like it before! I opted to walk the Cochrane hill and I was glad I did because the shoulder was littered with debris - gravel, bits of metal etc., and lots of broken beer bottle glass. I had allotted 1 hour to climb that hill, and to my surprise I reached the top in 40 minutes! |
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From there to Calgary was about 18 kms, and much to my relief the wind didn’t seem that bad. That section passed quite quickly for me because I was fascinated by the sky. Off to the right there was an anvil thunderhead producing a great deal of rain in spots, and off to the left were lenticular clouds developing by the minute, with mammatus clouds beside them. All was black in front of me. Just then, a faint hint of a rainbow appeared and within a few minutes, there were two complete rainbows spanning the sky - a double bow, one above the other. Under the arches of the double rainbow, in the pouring rain, I rode into Calgary and completed my 600K! |
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Highlights - weather: you name it, I experienced it! - wildlife: saw a lot! There was a little red fox, a large coyote, numerous deer, elk, mountain goats (including babies), one bighorn sheep with crooked horns … and fresh bear droppings. - hills: there were roughly a million of them. I think a grand total of about 1/10th of the route could be deemed flat. - sleep: got 2.5 hours at the 340-km point. - digestive issues: had some trouble around the 240-km point, but nothing serious and I recovered. - comments on other bodily parts: my face is BURNED, my eyes are red and burning, my sitbones and hands are in pain (that's from a 30 km section of extremely bad road), and the rest of my muscles are a little stiff and sore. I can't explain it, but the upper body soreness, numbness, etc. I was having on my 200K, 300K, and 400K did not occur this time. - mechanicals: two flats - complete: the fact that I completed a 600K!! I DNF'd my last two. - time: 37:35 total time; approx. 32:00 riding time. And the most special highlight of all ..... my father and the amount of support he provided!! :) He told me as we drove out of Calgary, that was his Father’s Day present to me!!
| NOTE: Many of the photos on this page were acquired from various tourist information or town sites. Some were taken by father and I plan to add more of my own when I get them developed. |
