Bikely map

Having gotten in late (though without the need to make myself dinner) the night before, and because it was raining hard for much of the morning, I slept in until around 9am, and was slow enough getting going that I didn’t reach the grocery store in Grand Forks to top up a few provisions until a little after 11am. It being Mothers’ Day, and having a pair of mother-folk who needed calling, I called my cell company just after the provision run to see what sort of coverage I could expect for the rest of the day. Getting the response that I was pretty close to the last of it, I called to send my best wishes for the day, but it kind of depressed me.

Finally at around noon, I headed out of Grand Forks, and the highway followed a river/creek slowly down towards Christina Lake, where I made my interim post. Getting back in the saddle at close to 3pm, I continued on, and somehow had failed to notice that I was beginning the most challenging climb in my ride to date. Instead I just thought that I was following a nice little fast-running creek up along a slightly-steeper-than river grade, and that when it got steeper, it was just a small roll or somesuch. I took some pictures of the nice snow-covered mountains on the other side of the creek, and made sure that I was well dressed for the intermittent rain.

Eventually I got the idea that I was on some sort of serious climb, and took a shot back at one of the climbing bits

and up ahead to the bridge leading over to those snow-covered mountains (at this point, the rain was getting pretty steady, though it was fairly light).

For a brief moment, I had a glimmering hope that maybe the bridge was as high as I was going, but it quickly occurred to me that even the most bone-headed engineer wouldn’t build a bridge that had to be climbed to from both sides when it could just be built a little lower. Given the altitude of the bridge, I was quite aware at this point that I was in the midst of a Serious Climb. There were a few other clues too:

I was also feeling kind of cold and tired in spite of my best efforts to take in more calories, and to strike the delicate balance in my layering between sweating too much while climbing, and getting too cold while catching my breath. I had tremendous difficulty making more than 50m at a time, was still depressed about Mothers’ Day, and there was beginning to be snow mixed in with the rain. I broke down in tears at least 3 times, 2 of them with sobbing, prayed for the summit to be just around the next turn, and shouted obscenities at the heavens when it wasn’t (and loudly enough with the echoes off the mountains that I could probably have been heard miles away). I lamented the short distance I had made so far, worried about making Nelson the next day (since I didn’t want to reprovision certain foods just before a rest day) became even more depressed about Mothers’ Day, and generally cursed the day that I was born.

Eventually, there was a lavel patch of gravel at the side of the road, onto which I pulled off, unloaded my bike, and made camp in the cold and wet. I didn’t bother taking any precautions for bears figuring that the only thing a bear ever does in weather like that is hibernate. I ate my food in the tent where it was (relatively) warm and dry, and went to sleep pretty much fully clothed in my sleeping bag, and still curled up in a fetal position for extra warmth. In moments of careless movement, I could feel some of the cold right through my thermarest, sleeping bag, and layers of clothing (though just enough to know that it was there, rather than be chilled by it). I went to sleep quickly with hopes of getting an early start the next day when, hopefully, it wouldn’t be quite so miserable.