My hosts in Princeton/Coalmont had their truck break down, so they couldn’t give me a lift back to the point in Princeton where they’d picked me up, and I rode there from Coalmont instead.
One of the residents kindly provided some otherwise absent signage to tell you what town you’re entering:
Knowing myself to have a short, easy day ahead, I decided to do some extra sleeping, and managed to remain in the sack until 8am (my touring routine seems to be 6am wake, breakfast and break camp until 8am, begin riding, with ongoing snacking and drinking, having an extra apple at 11am, and a sandwich or somesuch at 2pm, and finally stopping at 6pm to set up camp, have dinner, take notes for the day, and get to sleep by 9pm.) I took my time getting going, and didn’t actually hit the road until 10:30am. The ride to Princeton was pretty much a coast, for which I used the brakes to keep the bike under control, but generally didn’t make much use of the pedals. I stopped for some pictures, pushed my 11am apple back to noon, and made it to Princeton by 1pm.
I woke up somewhat stiff/sore from Sunday, but mainly lonely about not having been able to call home (this is a state of being that I rather suspect I will get somewhat accustomed to before making it out of BC, given how much mountainous terrain and poor cellular coverage there seems to be in this province). I checked my map before heading out, and figured, based on eyeballing it, that Allison Pass would be somewhere around km 40 of the highway. I had a little more nice coasting, flat terrain, and even gentle rolls for the first 8km or so, and then came upon a steep ascent around a corner with a road crew doing the sign turning thing (this at km 22). I asked them how much I’d have to climb before getting to the second sign and freeing the roadway back up for other users (because I didn’t want to be too much of a jerk about stopping in the middle and causing a problem), and they said it was a couple of turns of climbing, so I snacked up and watered up a little, and went at the ascent.
Hung around Harrison Hot Spring in the morning with Graydon and Frances, eating leftover pizza and part of a raisin scone for breakfast. Got out to take a look at the scenery before too many of the people showed up, and the place pretty much looked like this:
Woke up at around 8am to have a generous helping of (good) pancakes for breakfast with my friends (and hosts in Vancouver) Graydon and Frances. Graydon had prepared them the night before, and they were still quite tasty. We set out at around 9am, stopping at a water taxi dock so I could collect some Pacific Ocean water.
