tmacphail.ca

It had been a cold night and I stayed in my tent a little late and got on the road by 9:30. After 40 minutes I was already at Saskatchewan Crossing and stopped for a snack. Lunch was another 20km later at the Coleman Creek picnic area where a couple tour buses unloaded for lunch as well.

Next was a very hard climb up to Sunwapta Pass which is almost as high as Bow Pass yesterday. But this one was about 500m of elevation gain in 16km of road. By far the hardest climb I’ve had.

Just past the top was the border to Jasper National Park and shortly after that, the Icefield Center and the Athabasca Glacier which was very much a tourist destination. The parking lot was quite full and inside the center, just as full. I looked at a few exhibits inside and then continued on. It was a long, steep, winding, descent back down several hundred meters of elevation loss.

I continued on to Jonas creek where I discovered that they didn’t have credit card forms for self registration like the previous two campsites and I didn’t have enough cash. I had to stay here anyways (not going back up the big hill to the Icefield Center to get money) so I went up a hill into the walk in tent sites and picked one fairly out of sight so that I might not be discovered as not having paid. I almost got caught when I tried to go down to the creek to wash my dishes and put my food in a bear storage container and saw a Parks Canada person working so I went back to my site for a while.

There had been a lot of other cyclists on the road today, almost all of them heading in the other direction. I guess I wouldn’t see too many heading in the same direction as me if we ride at the same pace. One cyclist had a Canada flag flying from his bike and I wondered if he was heading across the country in the opposite direction.