We woke up to the cool temperatures at our ‘rustic’ campground. It was windy and a little on the cold side in the shade of the mountains. We got a fire going very quickly and had breakfast. Once we got back on the rode the sun started to shine on the road which made a big difference in the temperature.
In Hedley we stopped at the local Native cultural museum. It looked brand new and the inside of the old school building was very nice. The bathrooms were actually nicer than the ones we had seen at the Fairmont Hotel in Lake Louise! We had a great chat with the lady at the museum. She had told us to watch out for bears as she was followed by one back to town on a walk just the other day. It’s close to hibernation season and they are coming down into the valley for more food. She also said a cougar was spotted in town the other day. To top it all off she said her dog had killed a bobcat that was in his dog house that summer! When you look up at the bare hills you don’t see any wildlife, but it’s amazing that they are up there somewhere.
We were greeted by her dog and the friendly neighbourhood dogs just outside the museum. Hard to believe he had killed a bobcat!
We continued on towards Princeton along the river valley. It was cold in the shade but warm in the sun. The cold weather had aggravated my ‘runner’s knee’ since Calgary, and it was particular worse today. I did my best to keep it warm and took a couple ibuprofen so that we could keep going. It wasn’t too bad and with the clip-less cycling shoes I was able to mostly pedal just with my right leg when the going got tough.
When we arrived in Princeton it was sunny and warm. After stocking up on supplies we had a nice lunch at the town square on a bench. We had a nice rest as we knew we had a tough climb outside of town.
The climb from Princeton to EC Manning Provincial Park was by far the toughest climb we have done the entire trip. It was very very long, and unlike climbing the rockies from the east side, we were low enough in elevation at that point that we had a big climb. There were some narrow switch backs but there was always some shoulder and the traffic was very light. Best of all, the transport trucks were barely going faster than us up the hill!
We were very excited to reach the ‘summit’ sign. Although we had a big downhill afterwards, we had a climb up again soon after. We eventually got to just outside the provincial park where there was supposed to have been a campground according to our GPS, but there was nothing! The nearest campground was in the provincial park and another 20km away. By this time it was getting dark and we didn’t have enough sunlight (or too much energy) left to continue on. We haven’t got used to the shorter days and the climb took much longer than we had expected.
We saw a sign for a east gate gas station down the road so started cycling towards it. There was a fold out B&B on the side of the road so we decided to ride up the hill to it. Halfway up we decided to head back down and call them just in case it was closed or full (our lesson from the hostel in Canmore..). At the east gate gas station we asked about a place that we could camp, only to be told two out of the three campgrounds in the park were closed for the season and the only place was 20km down the road AND 6 km off to the side of the road uphill! We eventually found the phone number for the B&B and called them, but only got their answering machine. Things were starting to look pretty bleak so we decided to just bike up the hill to the B&B, as the map at the gas station showed that it was fairly close by.
When we arrived at the B&B, there was a note on the door saying that they were closed but reservations could be made by calling. Since we knew calling wasn’t going to work, we pretty much knew the B&B was now out of the question. As desperate as we had ever been, we spotted one of the cottages up the hill that had lights on. We walked up to the cottage, and asked if there was any place we could pitch our tent for the night. We met Lorne and Myra, who said that it would be no problem. We felt very glad but felt bad that we had to invite ourselves so suddenly and randomly at sunset.
Lorne and Myra were from Abbotsford and they had just happened to be there for the night. They were selling their cottage and getting ready to close things up. They were very nice to us and offered us use of their shower and bathroom for the night. We had a nice chat with them and signed their guestbook. It turns out their grand children had cycled from Vancouver to San Diego!
It was a very cold night and we were glad things had worked out! Thank you Lorne and Myra!
Trip Around The World 
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