Day 5 - Reprieve

So to recap yesterday my goal was a campground 30km from Revelstoke called Noah's Ark.  Its a cute little campground where they are in the progress of actually building an ark, I believe will be accommodations when its done.  Alas they were full so I trudged on and stayed at the Crazy Creek campground.  The site was mediocre but they have ambitious plans for the grounds.  I did enjoy the hot pools although for $10 I think its a bit steep for a glorified hot tub.  The water is pulled from the ice cold river and then heated.  But they do have 4 pools - 32C, 39C, 40C and 4C.  Yes 4C.... I dipped into it twice, and have to say its quite the shock to the body, although I do hear its good for the lymphatic system.

So a recap of my progress to date:

Day 1 - 105 km (Banff)

Day 2 - 85 km (Field)

Day 3 - 150 km (Rogers Pass)

Day 4 - 110 km Crazy Creek (Near Sicamous)

Day 5 -  95 km Sorrento

(Total 545 km)

Day 6 - REST REST REST

I woke up this morning a little late (7am) but that was intentional, what was not planned was it taking me nearly 90 min to pack up and have breakfast.  I didn't leave till nearly 8:30 and it was getting really hot out by then.  Today I did it in 3 blocks of roughly 30km each, the first was to Sicamous and that went reasonably well.  I did notice I'm not getting the same speed as I was on day 1 and I think that a day of rest for my legs is in order.  I made my stop at Dutchman's and had a delectable ice-cream cone, and bought some cheese for lunch. I also went to the fruit stand and bought some cherries and peaches.  They were so tasty.  Got to love BC fruit.

So part 2 I knew had a hill in it, what is not apparent when driving is how much uphill there is even when it looks flat.  I was almost in Salmon Arm and I thought I was done for, the road looked flat but my legs were saying they were tired, and I was barely making 9km an hour, it was so pathetic. To make matters worse is the heat was up in the 25C range by noon and that was also taking its toll on me.  As soon as I got into Salmon Arm, I detoured to the nearest McDs and had a refreshing ice cold pop and let my body cool down.  Once I had recovered I went to the mall where I bought an mp3 player so I can listen to something other then all the cars/trucks blasting by me.

I chatted with a couple other people there who told me that there was fires along the whistler road and it was most likely closed. In fact one of them thought that the valley was also closed due to fires.  If that's the case then I only have 1 option left and that's to take the Coquihalla but when I get to Kamloops I will check in at the visitor centre and see what the highways are like then. When I checked in at the visitor centre in Salmon Arm today, as of today the valley is closed due to debris but the lady there said it would be open later today.  And yes the Whistler route is closed due to fires.  I did strangely enough meet a lady there who was from Cochrane which was quite a surprise, she lives in Glenbow so just across the highway from me, some times this is such a small world.

As of today I have seen/met very few cyclists traveling.  I have met 2 people heading my direction (although they turns at Golden) and I've seen 2 people biking the other direction.  I had hoped to meet a few more by now, but perhaps August is the wrong time of year for cycling to Vancouver.  

So after Salmon Arm, I hid down by the peer all afternoon as the temperature crept up and up.  it was over 34C at one point and I was glad I was hiding under a tree and not biking in it.  I finally left Salmon Arm about 6pm and started the last leg of my journey to Sorrento (34km)  which was really nice especially as the sun started to set as it finally cooled off and became tolerable.  

I have now made it to roughly the middle at 540 km and tomorrow I am not even going to look at my bike. I think my legs need a day off and I plan on taking it very easy, in fact I'm going to book into the dining room and have breakfast, lunch and dinner all provided to me.  Its going to be great day indeed.