After all the buildup it was a relief to finally get this thing under way. Another crappy night's sleep (still jetlagged) led to ushering my uncomfortably laden rig through the Brewster Hotel doors for the last time and ambling down to the 'Y', whence assembled riders were mustered by Crazy Larry into a vague horseshoe assembly for photos, an oath pledged by all (particular emphasis on no drafting) and rolling out. Most were dressed for rain, given prior history, but I was more optimistic, given recent forecasts.
We rolled out en
mass down the lovely Spray River Trail, which sugar coats the reality of what
is to come. Once
the river is crossed the track soon became narrower, pinchier, gravellier, and
wetter, as rain started to make its unwelcome presence known. I
was having issues with securing a set of sneakers to my seat bag, so stopped a
few times to reconfigure things, and adorn light rain jacket, before finding my
position amongst a rapidly thinning field. And
then before I knew it I was virtually on my own, in dense forest, on a heavy
track, wending my way through rapidly changing perspectives, with nearly every
corner revealing the walls of stunning foreboding mountains looming over head,
their peaks largely obscured by the heavy fog of bad weather. But
I was upbeat. Despite
the poor conditions, these were exactly the vistas I had come for. I
was on the Tour Divide!
After several hours
of heavy progress the trail finally attained the shores of the magnificent
Spray Lakes Reservoir, with accompanying views and conditions reminiscent of my
minds eye of Fiordland, complete with strong cold headwinds laced with
increasingly large droplets of whipping precipitation. Time
to swap my lighter wind jacket (Outdoor Research) for the full monty heavy
weather jacket (Ground Effect), a strategy also adopted by several other riders
stopped on the trail.
I
was expecting bad weather, so was packed (a little heavily, perhaps),
accordingly. The
heavy and light outer shell jackets would be swapped depending on temperature,
and when a lull in precipitation allowed. Other items which would stay on for
much of the rest of the first day, in fact the first week, included my 3/4
length rain paints (also Ground effect - absolutely fantastic!), Gore-tex
weatherproof outer socks, which kept the wind off otherwise wet ankles, a set
of fleece flip-top gloves/mits (allowing easy temperature regulation) and some
gore-tex glove shells (Outdoor Research). I'm
not great when conditions are cold AND wet, so for me, all these items were
absolutely essential. The
other item I had in my repertoire that was fantastically useful was a shower
cap I'd procured just the day before departure. It wasn't the most stylish
item, but I suspect that when it was really coming down others wished they had
made a similar investment. The
cap went on and off about 10 times that day, also great for temperature
regulation on the fly, and great for blocking out cold wind of a morning.
An hour or so later
the trail delved into gloomy heavy single track, complete with energy sapping
and drive-train destroying bogs and many downed trees to be negotiated. Trench
warfare dispensed with we hit a long sodden gravel road sector that would take
us to the first resupply point on the route, the Boulton Trading store at 100
km. About
10 riders coalesced on this stretch as the wind howled in scenes not out of
place in Alaska. Two of us ended up riding predominantly together at this
point, the other, coincidently, another Australian, a country boy, Heath Wade,
from Yass. Heath
and I eventually rolled into Boulton where another 20 riders were mooching
around. We
kept our stop brief, just a top up of bladders and quick rearrangement of kit
before rolling out again.
We stopped briefly a
little later just below the crest of a hill for a pee. Heath
got moving again a little quicker than I, and as I rolled over the other side
of the hill saw the turn off for Elk Pass, the major obstacle for (the
standard) day 1, our first crossing of the continental divide, taking us from
Alberta into British Columbia. That
was the last I saw of Heath for the day, assuming he was up the trail. Unknown
to me he had missed the turn, would have to about-face, and was now behind me.
The climb up Elk
Pass was a heavy spongy bog along a power line trail -quite unremarkable - but
the views over the top and down the other side were anything but. Breathtaking! I
remember thinking that all the travel, jet lag, stress and preparation were
worth it for this experience alone.
On the long
undulating descent through bog-filled water bars I caught another rider, Wade
Greene, from Colorado. Our
paces seemed to match quite well so we struck up a conversation. As discussed
with Heath, my main focus for the end of the day was finding a willing
accomplice to join in getting over the re-route pass, "Koko Claims",
into the adjacent Bull Valley. The
re-route was necessitated due to downed bridges in the Flathead valley, where
the town of Sparwood (at approx 230 km) was my original destination. The
alternative resupply town of Fernie would be way out of range for me, which
meant camping "with the bears", somewhere along the route. I'd
promised Anita (and myself) that any sleeping rough in grizzly country would
be done in the presence of others.
Before getting to
the Koko Claims turnoff (approx 170 km), however, another obstacle presented. As
we got closer to the town of Elkwood (now off-route by 6km due to the
re-route), logging trucks had churned the road into a paste consistent with an
inch of wet cement, for a solid 15-20 km stretch. This
made progress extremely difficult as more rainshowers fed the mix. I
had a real fear of accruing a drive-train issue here, realised by at least one
rider I passed, walking with a rear derailleur that had been torn off. Somehow,
Wade and I were lucky enough to get through this mess and rode most of the
sector between obvious rain showers as the Koko turnoff approached.
Everyone was
apprehensive about the re-route pass given what had already been posted on
social media. At
2200 m it was way
higher than Elk pass, with the snow line starting at approx 1800 m. But
the real issue for the 10 km ascent was reputedly long stretches of unrideable
rocky inclines, and that's before the inevitable slug through the snow at the
top. We had ridden pretty
hard for most of the day to arrived at the base of the climb in good time;
approx 6:30 pm. Perfect! Should
be able to knock it off before dark.
Wade and I were both fearful of accruing
achilles injuries so had lugged sand shoes explicitly for this stretch. We
agreed to take it nice and slow. That
10 km took us approx 3 and a quarter hours to negotiate. It's hard to put into
words just how difficult segments of the pass were. Long
steep inclines paved with rubble, baseball to basketball sized, some segments
with water gushing straight down them. It
would have been a challenging passage with a 10 kg pack, but pushing and
dragging a 25 kg bike it was something else. Like
mountaineering at altitude, a few steps would be taken, the bike pushed/dragged
to the next awkward stance, brakes locking it into position, a few heavy
breaths taken, before repeating. It
was totally exhausting and interminable.
We finally gained
the top in fading light and proceeded to slide our way down some tight and
narrow shoots. On
one of these I had my first minor crash of the Tour. Shortly
after I misread another and had to abruptly yank my left leg out of cleats to
break my fall, tearing a muscle in my left quad as a consequence. My
whole body was heavily fatigued and increasingly susceptible to injury. Some
of the stream crossings here were pretty full-on too. Ironic
that the re-route to avoided water crossings gave us a dozen of these. We
finally hit a cryptic junction that lead to a dirt road out of there. Under
lights about 5 of us cruised for an hour before pulling up stumps at approx 11
pm in a vague clearing and threw down
camp. I
was so exhausted I crawled into my bivvy fully clothed. Day
1 summary - horrendous!
(196 km and 3055 m
elevation for the day).
Heath Wade
Alaska?
Descending Elk Pass
Wade Greene
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