The next day we awoke slightly bleary eyed and more than slightly sore. We packed up in the now almost empty campground as the hoard of southbounders had already zipped off.... Once ready, we hightailed it to a gas station nearby that served ready-made food and chowed down on fantastic breakfast sandwiches and hot cocoa, curiously watching miner after miner come into the shop to grab poutine for breakfast and then rush back into their pickups. Once back outside in the rather cold morning, we wound through town and hopped on a bike path leading from a neighborhood out of town. After getting briefly lost in the small patch of woods we reconnected with the trail and went over a bridge and onto a fire road that wound up and up. We turned off the road for a bit of singletrack to make our morning more interesting and I bumped around unhappily in the stunning surroundings, eventually sliding out and taking a small crash on a loamy corner. Shaking off the impact, we continued on and into another small valley of single track surrounded by wildflowers and with views to the mountains beyond before rejoining a fire road and immediately running into a pair of men in a Jeep who were perhaps the most Canadian folks we had ever met. They asked us if we had seen any bears and where we were headed on bikes, Ziven being reminded of George and Lenny from Of Mice and Men by the demeanor of the two. They bid us goodbye and, giggling at this wholesome encounter, we trucked onwards.

The gravel road was rolling hills for the entire morning and the sun warmed us right up as we slowly climbed and quickly descended. We traversed identical valleys with thickly wooded pine trees on either side for hours and I struggled for most of the climbs, Ziven coaxing me along with gummy bears and the promise of a break when we finished climbing. At one point we stopped to soak our shirts in a small icy waterfall on the side of the road and two separate cars stopped to fill their bottles unfiltered, citing this specific spring in the middle of nowhere as the best water in the world, year round. Confused but convinced we had found the Fountain of Youth, we filtered some of it before continuing on the same up and down and up and down as before. On one descent Ziven and I got separated because I kept going towards a campsite at the bottom of the hill instead of turning right because I could not see Ziven ahead of me. After adjusting and climbing some more, we turned off the fire roads onto a grassy road that announced we were leaving British Columbia via a carving in a wooden arch. The road beyond was the commonly photographed “Powerline Trail” and we wound down the grassy road under, well, powerlines, as huge pointy slabs of granite loomed in the distance. After this section we popped out on a road and happily zoomed downhill before turning into a small visitor center at a campground where they sold supplies and ice cream. We stocked up on dinner noodles and a few overpriced snacks before getting some truly delicious ice cream cones. We sat and ate them while they melted on our hands, plotting the rest of the day. We knew there was a big push to one of the campsites before Banff but that Banff proper was plausible for this evening if everything went well. We therefore packed up quickly and headed up the road, climbing on asphalt before the surface transitioned into deep gravel and we headed up our last climb of the day.

I was about to throw a tantrum at the dust from the cars, the slowness of the sticky and too deep gravel, and the prospect of another climb on what felt like a day filled with nonstop climbing. Ziven was saved from my outburst by Neil, another northbound biker who approached and rode with us for the entire climb. We chatted and discovered we had barely missed each other throughout the whole ride. He was a lawyer and trail runner from Texas and was often on very interesting adventures such as this. He kept us entertained and sane the whole climb and we only split up with him when we pulled into a mountain lodge that offered yurts to bikers and Neil elected to stay here for the night. We wanted to get a bit closer to Banff before the sun went down, so we washed our grimy hands in the posh bathrooms of this mountain getaway lodge that had a 5 star restaurant, bid Neil goodbye, and continued down the backside of the climb.

The road soon flattened and we were able to make good time despite cars churning up dust around us every few minutes. Approaching a lake from the south, we turned off the main gravel road and paused before the dam at the mouth of the lake. This was our decision point - should we push through about 8 miles of singletrack to Banff tonight or not? The sun had set by now and we were working purely with afterglow. Not knowing the type of singletrack and if it would be quick for Elisa or not, we elected to play it safe and stop at the campground on the forest side of the dam. We paused at the camp host to pay our fee and, while Elisa took a potty stop, Ziven got his phone plugged in at the host’s RV. Not finding any sites close to the lake, we chose a site on the forest side and I started setting up camp while Ziven biked around to make sure we didn’t miss a prettier site. Content with this spot, he returned and we mournfully threw the tent footprint over the tent as a makeshift rainfly. We cooked dinner on the brand new picnic table and marvelled at the untouched and perfectly compacted gravel pads that each site comprised of; clearly this campsite was brand new. We ate our dinner and some extra snacks before passing out in bed.