Day 3:

• The day could be divided into thirds:
• Typical cross-country riding from Canyon CG to the Elk Pass Trail Head.
• Time consuming uphill riding or pushing to Elk Pass (Continental Divide).
• Extremely rough 10 mile segent while riding from Elk Pass toward Elkford.
  We did not make it to Elkford.
• We discovered a loose bolt (lost rack nut) climbing to Elk Pass and had to perform trail maintenance. We do carry spare nuts & bolts for the bike (all metric) and we carry the appropriate tools. We repaired the bike while a Gentleman from Ireland stopped and talked to us.
• Downhill from Elk Pass, the road had been destroyed by logging trucks.
• Sometimes deep logging truck ruts had been filled by 3 to 5 inch round rock, typical of Construction Sites. Sustained riding in those conditions will tear-up a loaded touring bike - We were already committed.
  
• Sometimes the rear tandem ruts of the logging truck or trailer left 12 inch wide tracks with 12 inch walls - a person cannot pedal in a deep rut because bike pedals clearance space is actually 14 to 18 inches wide (tip to tip). The pedals cannot rotate in that confined space and that translates to a lot of bike pushing. Unfortunately, there are no good pictures of the worst case situations, we were too busy working.
• Sometimes the double track of the logging truck's tandem Wheels had a solid wall in the middle, about 12 inches tall and 2-3 inches wide.
• During the slosh fest with logging tire tracks, our rear brake would not operate. Our rear bike rack (missing some support fasteners) had slid into the space of the rear brake caliper's wire nut (preventing it from clamping the disk pads onto the rear disk/rotor).
• In the middle of the logging run, we discovered newly missing nuts and bolts. We exhausted our supply of spare parts and that has never happened before in 20 years of bike touring.
• Our bike repair sessions took a lot of time.
• Eventually we were making priority choices for what to repair and what to tape (or field repair just to make it to Elkford), we ran out of nuts, and we ran out of the typical bolt sizes.
• We had planned on spending this night in Elkford, but we had to spend the night on the trail. We went into our emergency spare day of food.

Day 3 - Alberta to British Columbia:
Canyon CG, to Elk Pass (6443'), to Elk River Rd (a rough ride), to Blue Lakes Primitive Camp

Left: Terry is making Breakfast while Dennis packs the inside tent.

Center: Terry is cleaning and packing the kitchen while Dennis is breaking down the tent.

Right: Terry and Dennis load the bike.

Above: The views are wonderful.

Above Left: Great vistas.

Above Right: It just lets us know that we are passing Mile Marker 60.2.

Elk Pass Trailhead

Above Left: Enjoying the morning view.

Above Right: The road to the Elk Pass Trail and Trailhead.

Above Left: The turn-off for the Elk Pass Trail and Trailhead.

Above Right: Trailhead Information Kiosk, looking at it paid-off.

Above Left: The detail for getting to Elk Pass - Basically there are two routes that follow a paralelagram-rectangle, the Adventure Cycling Map clearly uses the north-side route of the box choices, so we did too. It avoided riding next to the river, which turned out to be wet or boggy. We, unwittingly, took the steeper dry route.

Above Right: This detail map shows the route after going through Elk Pass (heading toward Elkford, BC).

Above: We're looking at the unusual upper-air-mass rip in the sky. That means turbulence is going to happen somewhere, certainly in the air but maybe effecting near the earth somewhere.

Above: ... and so the climb begins. It was not as difficult as we expected.

Above Left: We found the power lines, basically we are following the Power Line road to and across Elk Pass because it may be the only through-road from Alberta to British Columbia in this section of the mountains.

Above Right: Our back view, looking over Lower Lake Kanananskis.

Above: A compact forest (implies that it is medium aged forest, not young, not old).

Above Left: We arrived at the southwest corner of the paralelagram.

Above Right: Looking up the creek.

Above Left: Terry Struck and the Bee are standing by the Trail Sign. We're going up the northwest leg.

Above Right: Looking for Monster Eyes.

Above Left: Looking at our backtrail as we climb (a high contrast photo situation).

Above Right: Side view as we climb.

Above Left: Climbing and following the Electrical Tower Access Road. Sometimes the road is under the towers and sometimes the road is positioned away in order to avoid wetland areas.

Above Right: Terry, riding in the Stoker's Position, mentioned that she was hearing a funny noise. We stopped and discovered that we were missing a Fastening Nut between the Rear Rack and the Bike Frame (the bolt was there).

Above Left: This Gentleman, originally from Ireland and recently from Vancouver, had just ridden to Elk Pass and was returning on our route. He went up the Boggy Route and he is the person that brought us up to speed on the trail conditions. We talked for about 30 minutes while we were checking the bike and making corrections, a lot of bolts or nuts were loose. We had some spare nuts.

Above Right: Another peak to the side. We're between 1 and 2 miles away from Elk Pass.

Elk Pass (6443'/1963m)
The Only GDMBR Continental Divide Crossing in Canada
Crossing from Peter Lougheed PP, Alberta to Elk Lakes PP, British Columbia

Above Left: Still climbing, false pass; about a mile to go.

Above Right: Elk Pass (6443'/1963m); the only GDMBR Continental Divide Crossing in Canada; we're crossing from Peter Lougheed Provincial Park, Alberta, to Elk Lakes Provincial, British Columbia.

Above Left: The Bee will soon be layered with mud.

Above Right: Nice view.

Above: The hills are alive ...

Above Left: It is easy to ride downhill.

Above Right: Grand Touring.

Above: Miss Daisy.

Above: Life is good.

Above Left: Elk River Road.

Above Right: Crystal clear water.

Above Left: We had lunch next to a clear water culvert, we performed a water resupply after lunch.

Above Right: The Bee took a break.

Above Left: A new plant to us.

Above Right: A flower close-up.

Above: Looking west along the Elk River Road.

The Loggers Road

Above: Around mile 70, the road started going to heck, a major logging operation was being conducted. There was a lot of rock fill and the road was getting rough to ride upon. In some cases without rock fill, the logging truck tires were leaving deep ruts, some up to the axel level. Unfortunatly, we do not have pictures of the worst parts (we were too busy riding or pushing the bike) but for a few hours, cycling was a challenge.

Above Left: The rear brake quit working. Observe a rack bolt working its way out (the nut was lost, we had a spare). Notice that the rack slid down and the the forward support strut is parked against the Brake Cable's Mount. Ergo, we could NOT operate the rear brake. We did fix all issues that we could on the spot. This was a series of field repairs that took an hour in total.

Above Right: I am pointing at the Rack Strut contact on the Brake Cable Mount (opposite side of the strut from my finger).

Above: Timber Collection Point, ready for Logging Truck pick-up. Oddly, the road is nice here and from here onward the Elk River Road became normal/typical for a Provincial Park road.

Above Left: The road became quite pleasant.

In total we spent about an hour and a half on bike repairs today, consequently we are not going to make it to Elkford as planned. We will stay at a primitive campground around GDMBR Mileage Point 97.

Blue Lake Recreation Site, BC

Above Left: Buttercup.

Above Right: This will be camp for the night: Blue Lake Recreation Site, BC, User Maintained. We think that 'User Maintained' means the same as Primitive Camping; they have an outhouse and a picnic table, that's it. This site is located at Mileage Mark 97.0.

Above Left: At first, I thought it was a space for a flipped over rock, now I am not so sure, it is possibly a bear print (next to the lake).

Above Right: Blue Lake.

Above: This was our campsite (Blue Lake Recreation Site, BC); the lake is in the back ground, the tent is midway, and the picnic bench is in the foreground along with Terry and the Bee. This picture was actually taken in the following morning.