Bikely map
When I was waking up and going through the motions of breaking camp (most of which, like repacking the sleeping bag, rolling the thermarest back up, etc. are done without cracking open the tent fly) a family defied my expectations and came to the playground with their children at around 7am. I could hear the children playing, and the parents telling them that they could go and play on one of the other objects as soon as both of them were ready to play on it, and things like that.
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Woke up and headed out to reprovision at the Kootenay Co-op at around 8am. Grabbed a raspberry croissant for breakfast at a nearby cafe, and hit the road by 9am. I had some slight mechanical problems with my rear rack again (having raised it a little, it was now high enough to really clear the dropouts and swing over to rub against the spokes; I loosened the clamps and lowered it about 1/8-1/4" so that the dropouts could pin it away from the wheel). Caught a nice mountain morning pic
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Bikely map
I woke up at around 5am, and decided that since I was going to be a chilly up near this summit, regardless of whether or not I was sleeping, and that since I had over 90km to ride to Nelson, I should just make an early start. I was a little sluggish, but having been a little more lax on bear management (no self respecting bear would wander so far into such a cold area), was still able to hit the road by around 7am.
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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.
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It was a rainy morning, so I slept in until 8am, and was subsequently able to get up and dressed, break camp and have breakfast quickly enough to be back on the road by 9:40. After a very short bit of descent, the climb continued, and I got another nice picture of the view
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I woke up and it was cold enough (and the tent was damp enough both from the cold and from having been pitched in the rain the night before) that I was quite slow getting myself out of my sleeping bag to actually begin the day. This lag pushed my start time back to 8:45am from the usual 8:00am.
In spite of the conditions in/around the tent, it was actually a rather nice day, and I didn't get terribly far before the turn off towards DRAO (note that DRAO was a point of interest for me largely because my friend Tim did a work term there) near this little vista:
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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:
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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.
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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.
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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:
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