Summer at Assiniboine

The rockies are a special place and full of surprises, particularly when it comes to views and the weather.

I went to with my family on a long-planned trip. Assiniboine lodge is in Assiniboine Park, just over the border in British Columbia. I remember being there when I was 17 years old and the parks were planning on cancelling the Renners' lease on the lodge. All the people who really loved the place showed up, and I ended up getting drunk on scotch and walking back on a 30cm wide stretch of walkable snow in the moonlight to the cabin, then getting up and skiing the next day. I'm not sure that I can even telemark ski on those old straight and curve-less skis any more, but I sure as hell had a good time back then.
This time, we were going up to spread my mom's ashes on Wonder Pass. So, we hiked in 24km (Nancy took the heli), and actually managed to get to the lodge in time to eat dinner! (This is highly unusual for us.) The next day Larry and Nancy stayed at the lodge so that the remaining five of us could use the five sets of available snow shoes to travel the 3km to the pass on what turned out to be a lovely day. We remembered, spread the ashes, and drank some scotch in her memory.
The next day my younger brother and I had planned for a two-person romp up Jones' peak. We had planned to traverse the nublet, but got on the wrong side and found ourselves on top! Then we had a bit of a snow field to cross.

The red algae that you can see on the snow seemed to indicate areas which were easier walking. I can only assure you that the red you see in my foot steps was not from my blisters, bad though they may have been. We had so much fun making it to the top that we decided to go back to the nublet and on to the Nub, which offered the view of Mt. Assiniboine that you see above. We had a great time running around on mountain tops and ridges! When we got back, Heather, who was working at the lodge, didn't believe at first that we had done both peaks in the amount of time we had been gone, but she eventually overcame her suspicions.

It was a safe trip and everyone had a good time. I was really glad that we had a chance to fulfil my mom's last wishes. It is a place full of fond memories, and to which I hope to return again.

More pictures are here, including a fantastic ski descent by none other than Matt Roberts.

Damn it's flat here

I'm back in Edmonton!  

I flew up to Vancouver early so that I would make sure that I would be there in time to get everything ready for my appointment at the French consulate.  I am going to be doing a post-doc in Marseille starting in July, so I wanted to be sure that I wasn't going to mess anything up administratively, which, I must say, is something that I do more often than I would like to admit.  When the documents from France didn't show up in time, I emailed my post-doc host to ask him for the tracking number, only to find out that one of the secretaries had sent it out late!  After contacting the consulate and finding out that there wasn't much point making my appointment without a complete application, I had to re-book.  I will be back in Vancouver on July 9th, so things should still work, but it's frustrating.

What's particularly frustrating is that I cut my trip somewhat short to make my original appointment; had I known that it wasn't going to work out, I could have biked down Big Sur, and made it to Los Angeles. It sounds amazing down there, so I'll definitely have to get there some day.  

In the time before I had to be in Vancouver, I made a quick loop of Vancouver island, taking the ferry from Vancouver to Victoria, then biking to Nanaimo before taking the Nanaimo-Vancouver ferry back to the big city.  I was staying with my good old friends Tom & Sandy (and their cute kids) in North Van, and visiting friends on the island, so I got to leave about 30lbs of camping gear.  A great difference!  Getting up the Malahat was a relative breeze compared to some of the hills I encountered along CA 101 north of San Francisco.  I stayed with Nancy in Victoria.  I stayed with Adrian and Caroline in Nanaimo, and got to see Jen and Ken as well, old friends whom I have not seen for too long.

One of the great things with bike trips is the sense of purpose with which one rises each day; one's job is to bike, eat, and then sleep.  It's not always simple, it's not always easy, but it's always a pleasure and it's easy to see what needs to be done.  Back in town, I'm still waking up fairly early and with a lot of energy, but deciding what needs to be done each day is a more complicated matter, and the results of one's actions are more far-off and there is less of a sense of urgency.  So; I've fixed three bikes, tidied up various room in the house, done laundry, and taken care of a some emails to which I had been meaning to get, among other things.  I've also uploaded my pictures from the trip, which can be seen here:

I'll add text and locations now and then, when I have time.  Enjoy!

I made it to San Francisco!

I arrived on Sunday, 2012-05-27, which turns out to have been the 75th anniversary of the completion of the Golden Gate Bridge. They were closing the bridge to all traffic for a fireworks display in the evening, and I managed to get onto the bridge about 20 minutes before they weren't allowing pedestrian or bike traffic any more. Lucky! Before I hit the bridge, I stopped by a bike co-op to see what was happening and hopefully get some directions,

There, I met Nicolas, who was biking in that direction anyway, and then I noticed a (clearly German-made) touring bike which was being ridden by Annette, who is a post-doc in bio at Berkeley. So, we all headed over the bridge together.

Annette showed me the rest of the way to Berkeley, where I've spent a couple of days hanging out with Carly (of Edmonton post-doc fame) and relaxing. Once again, I have clean clothes to wear. I spent 9 days on the bike straight! I had thought it was much less.

Getting to the bay area was a lot of fun. After Arcata, I went through another park full of big redwoods. It felt like being underwater, and the fallen giant trees reminded me of whale falls. I've always wanted to do an installation piece involving putting a whale skeleton somewhere far inland for people to discover, and this might just be the place for it.

After a while I headed over to CA 1 which follows the coast for about 300 km north of San Francisco. The days were pretty long and the hills never really disappeared, with the road either dropping down from the coastal cliffs to each stream bed or climbing high to get around some headwall or other. The views were spectacular, as was the roaring 40 km/h tailwind that I had for a day and a half.

The traffic was quite reasonable and I the road was fine for the trip. I took a short-cut through a camp ground at one point on which there was the smallest, most avoidable sand dune possible. I have always wanted a picture of myself epically pushing a bike through the sand, so I found a place where it looked dramatic and did just that, completely gratuitously:

I'm having a nice time here in Berkeley, and hope to get over to see San Francisco a bit more tomorrow. Sadly, I'm not going to be able to make it down to LA to see Meaghan on this trip, but I have another chance coming up with a conference (or in Europe!) so the time will come. On Thursday, I fly up to Vancouver to visit and bike the island before dealing with the French consulate.

Et In Arcata Ego

I'm taking a lazy day in this little college town. After biking through rain for three days, it was time to take a break to let my muscles relax a bit and wash some clothes. I rolled into town around noon along the Hammond trail, a little multi-use trail that took me off of the 101. A local cyclist rolled up next to me and helped me with directions into town. It turns out that he's a geology prof who studies the frequency of earthquakes; I kind of had him pegged for a prof when I first laid eyes on him. I wonder if my profession is so easily guessed. Arcata is a cute little town. The main square is full of dharma bums, and there are lots of cafes and the types of bars one would expect from a college town. The semester let out a couple of weeks ago, so it's fairly quiet. Yesterday I biked through the Red Woods national & state park; it was incredible. A fairly long day to have started in the afternoon, but I made it to Prairie Elk camp ground on the south end of the park. It rained, but this wasn't an experience which is diminished by rain - the trees are epic, but the panoramas are not, and the feeling of closeness and majesty is heightened by the trees disappearing into mist.

I met a cyclist from Michigan with whom I shared a camp fire.

He is dealing with the long-distant cyclist problem of knee pain and is wisely taking it easy, and in the morning I was on the road before he got out of his tent. I'm ready to hit the road again, but, just as I was getting set up the rain came again. I don't think that it will last that long, but I'm happy to delay my departure for a while. The next leg will take me to the Avenue of the Giants, and then down to highway 1 along the coast. If I can figure out a good route, I might try and visit a winery, though the climb from the coast might put me off!

Malcolm Roberts has Died of Dysentery

Just kidding! Ha ha. Of course, I'm fine, it's just that I'm finishing my trail through Oregon. I'm in Brookings, having a coffee and some lunch before I head across the border in to California.

Leaving Tillamook, I ran into a bike-ride cancer fundraiser, which felt like they'd thrown a party just for my arrival:

I ended up in Lincoln, where I found that the camp site was in the middle of the city, so I stayed at a cheap hotel instead of worrying about random people wandering into camp. Shame; I biked past a nice camp site not long before. It may have been for the best, since the weather turned overnight. After a first long day, Sunday started off with rain, which was actually a pleasant change for this prairie boy. It tapered off into a merely overcast afternoon, which made for some pleasant riding, though not as fast as the day before.

Knowing what the weather would be like, I motel'd it again, having gotten to Coos Bay. I was hoping to stay in one of the yurts that are available at some of the state parks, but they were all full, and all I got for my troubles was a fantastic setting for dinner at Sunset Beach.

the weather has been cold and rainy, and the visibility on the road isn't very good, so I hitched the last 20km into town. With fine weather, I managed 180km, with half-rain and headwind, 130, and with rain all day and headwind gusts of 50km/h, only 80km. To get out of this weather pattern and try and keep on some sort of schedule I bussed from Coos Bay to Brookings, and now I'm going over the coast into California, where I hope to camp in Red Woods National Park. Might stay a couple of days in Arcata (Chris tells me it's a cool town) before continuing south.

Scheduling bike trips is difficult, because one is so rarely in complete control of one's situation. I will try and do all the things that I set out to do, but I must also promise myself not to rush it for the sake of both my enjoyment and safety. I'm excited to hit the road today!

Getting out of Portland took a bit of doing; it turns out that there are some significant hills out there! From almost sea-level (I've googled it) I climbed to 1500 feet before descending to Tillamook on the coast. I read my friend Chris' advice too late and didn't visit the cheese factory there, but I did stop and have some pizza. The route to Tillamook was somewhat uninspiring, as the scenery was fairly closed in, full of farms and logging, though the road was fine enough, and I was able to follow bike routes to the very edge of the suburbs where proper farms started. Traffic was fine, there's foor every 30km or so, but, except for the forest preserve, it wasn't that inspiring. But then I got about an hour south of Tillamook and the views opened up. First sighting of the ocean is always exciting for this prairie boy, and the route followed pretty close to the ocean most of the way. I also really liked the detour it takes just before Lincoln city through another forest preserve, which had some of the most fun road biking I've ever done - very nice curves, and steep enough to get to speed without being so steep that one is on the brakes all the time. I took advantage of the nice weather to get to Lincoln city, 183 km from where I started. I was planning on camping, but the campground is right in the city and rain was expected, so I treated myself to a hotel. The weather has turned today, with a fair bit of rain all the way down the coast of Oregon. The plan today is to bike to Newport and then see how I feel; this is a perfect opportunity to bus ahead a bit, so if the riding isn't good I'll just skip ahead. The next thing I really want to see is Capo Blanco, which could be very interesting camping in this weather!

Portland

Starting can be the hardest part, especially when it involves putting bikes on planes.

Staying on the bike, well, that's easy - just pedal! But getting the bike packed, getting it to the airport, convincing the airline staff that, yes, they should let you check your bike and, no, they should not charge you extra, putting the bike together after you land, finding the hostel... it's more complicated. My new Arvon touring bike has couplers on the frame, so I can at least avoid the oversize charges. I put it in a cardboard box that I cut to fit,

and then wrapped that in a tarp:

I was pleasantly surprised to not be charged extra luggage fees, and the package was in great shape on the other end! Lauri gave me a ride to the LRT, and then I took the new 747 bus to the airport, which all worked out really well.

On the Portland side, I had some trouble with my navigation app (OsmAnd), which tried to tell me that it was 100km from the airport to the hostel, so I teamed up with a physician from Washington DC who was riding in (and had a data connection on his phone). Afterwards, I went to the Rogue brew house and had some excellent beer with two other people I met from DC, Michael and Nicole, who were a lot of fun. Interesting to learn about what living in DC is like. Afterwards, I met with Shawn and April, two locals who are friend with Keith whom I know from EBC in Edmonton. Shawn and April gave me some invaluable advice and cycling maps. They were a lot of fun to hang out with!

Today I will check out Portland some more, e.g. Powell's books, the rose garden, and maybe a community bike shop if I have the time. Also time to stock up on supplies. Portland has been great so far, and it's full of hot girls on bikes, so please excuse any narrative breaks in this post.

~Malcolm