Up to Bow Summit and down to Lake Louise - Day 11

Starting out from Saskatchewan River Crossing I was anticipating that some distance down the road I would be doing some serious climbing through the Bow Pass, up to the highest altitude of the entire trip. What I wasn't anticipating is that, before the Bow Pass, there are also some 'other' fairly serious hills to be negotiated.

Once again (still?) the scenery was magnificent and the sense of being totally immersed in the grandeur of this was still pretty mesmerising. Each big hill overcome somehow seemed to justify the beauty of the scenery, in a strange way.

This last shot was a rest point on the climb up Bow Pass, having dragged my bike off the road, propped myself up against a rather gravelly bank, and quaffed orange juice and energy bars for about 15 minutes. It's funny how the first urge is to replenish your body, but then that is replaced by the feeling that sitting there too long may result in some furry predator having similar thoughts. So, back onto the bike ...

Finally I made it to Bow Summit. The air was a tad more chilly up here - about 3C - and there was a little drizzle about too, making it a tiny bit uncomfortable, but coupled with that was the exhilaration of knowing that this was probably the hardest part of the whole ride - and we had made it.

Just over the Summit was Bow Lake, so we stopped in there for another monster Hot Chocolate and a bit of a look around ...

... and, YES, that lake is frozen. I told you it was cold up here.

Now for the fun bit. The ride/roll down into Lake Louise was fantastic. I came across a sign to Lake Helen, and thought I should probably go check it out.

But it turns out the Park was closed, it was a 6km hike through the woods to the Lake, and there was a large pile of bear scats ... in the carpark (which I figured might have been the remnants of the last person that tried to walk up to Lake Helen, by themselves, when the Park was closed). So it was on to Lake Louise.

Dropping into the Information Centre there, I was informed that the next open campground was Johnston Canyon 'about' 25km down the road toward Banff. Part of that ride was on the main Highway 1 where they have fully fenced off the highway to prevent fauna from straying into traffic, but built these cool little 'wildlife crossings' - they are actually not that little ...

So, May 24th and I camped at Johnston Canyon Campground, on its first open day of the Summer season. A 117km day in total ... Nice!