August 24
53mi/85km
2600ft/780m elevation gain
It rained all night last night, but it stopped around 6:30am, at least for awhile. As we broke camp and ate breakfast, and for about the first hour of riding, it was cloudy but rain free. We ate apple fritters from the lodge yesterday and drank coffee enjoying the views of the lake. It was a short-lived reprieve. It rained the rest of the day. It was chilly but not too cold, so while we were covered head to toe in rain gear, we didn’t need additional layers underneath.
At one point we saw some blue sky, and we felt the warmth of the sun through the clouds, but that was just a tease. Occasionally we’d see mountain peaks emerge through the clouds.
The traffic on this road has been much more than we expected. With the clouds obscuring most of the views, I counted the number of cars passing us on the road for an hour. I got to 70, and that was only counting the vehicles going the same direction of travel. I expected to see dozens of cars per day on this route, not hundreds. We thought the campgrounds were crowded because it’s been the weekend, but today is Monday and it’s busy as ever. I guess we’ve left the remote north behind, even if we are still in Northern BC.
We’ve also noticed the changing scenery. The trees are getting bigger. There is a lot more greenery. We saw thimbleberries for the first time on this journey today. The past few days there’s been tons of daisies. Things are starting to look a bit more like the Pacific Northwest, although there are more deciduous trees around.
We found a spot to camp hidden off the road. We set up in the rain. We cooked and ate dinner in the rain. Then we finally got inside the tent to start to dry ourselves out. We got a weather report, not that they are very reliable, and it says it will rain all night but should be done by 9am. Even if not, we will be soggy in the morning, but it’s 20 miles to a lodge where we can take a shower. This has been our longest stretch without a shower on this journey. Hopefully we can do some laundry too
