Following the exhausting and biggest day of the trip, it was unfortunate that due to the flights I got booking so late, we had to cover the same distance again to get back to Fernie in time for me to pack my bike and get to Calgary airport the following day. There was some talk of friends coming and rescuing us if necessary – I don’t think either of us liked the principle of this option.

The first leg of the day was to Cranbrook and timing our departure correctly meant Katie could join us on her bike-commute. What a commute – thirty kilometres of sealed rail trail. Views, hills, traffic-free, peace; my commute is pretty good, half on pathway around the coast, but this one I was a little envious of. In summer at least, I suspect I’d prefer my ride to work in the winter!

Getting off the pathway to look over the embankment across the surrounding valley.

A crazy smooth rail trail, especially after Salmo, it was well good for bikepack chatting.

Saying farewell to Katie as we approached town, we headed off to a recommended cafe for second breakfast. And third breakfast. It was warming considerably by the time we headed out of town, stopping for the last gas station stock-up of the trip, and found another rail trail. This one wasn’t so much pavement, but smooth packed gravel. We took it easy in the shade. Eventually we had to join the highway for twenty minutes, despite our attempts to follow some singletrack that didn’t end up going the correct direction. Coincidentally, some motorcyclists, who made our acquaintance the previous morning in Nelson, roared past during that short stretch of highway riding.

A quiet rural road through plenty of fields with many quaint old North American barns took us to the settlement of Wardner and the Kootenay River. The highway had crossed the river, so it was proper quiet; Wardner was small, without services or any place that looked worth stopping for lunch (or fourth breakfast, as the case may have been). We attacked a steep climb instead, the road getting even more rural and turning to gravel. By now we’d left all traffic behind, found somewhere to lunch and continued climbing before a big downhill back to the river. Also, we were back to meeting other people touring on bikes – albeit hauling two or more times more stuff than we were. I finally got fed up with having to inflate my tubeless rear tyre twice, or more, daily and used the small bottle of sealant I’d been carrying all trip. It improved somewhat.

More gravel roads to whizz down; and yes, still trees to be seen.

Back on the seal for a bit, it was certainly hot enough as we approached the bridge across the Kootenay for our last ice cream stop of the route. Mid-afternoon and hot, we still had fifty generally uphill kilometres to go before starting the drive back towards Canmore. Still a steady pace, Gray Creek Pass’s effects may have slowed us a little. Huzzah, more gravel, sustained climbing; this trip just kept on delivering.

Crossing the highway that took us to the US border on the day we set-off, we were trying to get back to the quiet road that would take us alongside the Elk River back to Fernie. Alas, there was a very large sawmill on the connection; that meant a lot of unnerving heavy traffic on a wide, unsealed and noisy road. Not at all pleasant. While a road was marked around the outside of the mill, it was touch and go as to whether we’d be able to sneak around or get stopped and turned around. By this stage, the desire to get back to Fernie was strong and the thought of backtracking appealed none.

Unfortunately, my last photo of a fantastic trip appears to been a very poor one of a Canfor sawmill; ho hum.

We snuck through unchallenged and on the outskirts of Elko we rejoined our first day’s route and turned for Fernie. We repaid all that altitude lost initially with a gradual, and at times undulating, ascent back to town. A great effort (considering Megan’s dearth of distance biking in the previous year) to put our two longest days of the trip, in heat that we were getting used to, back to back to finish twelve days and nearly twelve hundred kilometres later.

It was a fantastic trip and would have been so if planned months in advance – Megan certainly put a great route together. That I started riding in the heat of North American summer less than a week after being invited while skiing in the south of a New Zealand winter, made the adventure all the more incredible. A bikepacking expedition to be remembered for: trees, long gravel climbs, the heat, cheese, frozen burritos, ice creams, snap peas, shortbread, misplaced electrolytes, bears, eagles, ospreys, an owl, deer, chipmunks, ground squirrels, smoke, moose, picnic tables, mochas, amazing crepes, huckleberries, heinous-rail-trail and I’ve probably gone on enough…

Thanks to Megan for all the organising, excellent route-finding, having me along for a thoroughly enjoyable ride, putting up with my diversions (mostly food-based, but also navigational), and also for all the photos of me that I’ve purloined.

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