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previous 04-08-04 | calendar | 18-08-04 nextThrough the fog still settled in the foothills under the towering vertical faces of the Canadian Rockies in Banff National Park, I caught a glimpse of where the mountains scrape the sky. I had to tilt my head back above the surrounding trees, higher still than where the fog ran thick to find a patch of blue and there, underscored in gray rock, a mountain of fantastic proportions. Even when seen in moments and pieces the Rockies still impress.
From my free camping at a quarry on Highway 1A, I continued east, along a winding and slightly rolling narrow road, thankfully clear of traffic at this time of morning, not only because of the absence of a shoulder or the persistence of fog, but also for the tranquility that settles with the silencing mist.
The bush began to admit wider patches of grass areas between the pines and birch as I cycled along. These areas expanded to become pasture and suddenly, after clearing a corner up and around a hill grass had come to blanket all the eye could see. I had reached The Prairies. As quick as that, the transformation from mountain to prairies took only a few kilometres and the direction of your vision.
Initially grumpy at the conditions the province of Alberta kept their roads in, I was soon praising them as Mohrgan said I would. It was like I had my own lane - wider at times than the actual 'road', I think. With new terrain, scenery and road conditions and all of it mostly flat, the bike fair clipped along at a great pace.
Since yesterday morning's exhaustion and the decision to cycle three reasonable days of 100km rather than bust a gut on two 150km days (the previous three days since leaving Kamloops averaged over 155km - including two passes) I hadn't settled my mind on where to stop tonight. Drumheller and a day off was tempting, but over 200km away.
In Cochrane I climbed up out of town continuing on the 1A up the 'Big Hill'. Looking back on the town with an eagle's view (two were perched on fence posts nearby sounding like the soundtrack to an old Western movie) I saw beyond the new developments and golf course to the city with a "Million Dollar View" and, in the distance, I had my last view of the Rockies.
Turning my back to the mountains I kept east flying along until my first part of navigation since the first day out of Vancouver, negotiating the network of roads set east-west and north-south. Like they had been etched from space, these roads plot a straight course, like a Roam road, up hill and down dale and, of course, across flats. If, by a trick of my mind, the proportions of the road seemed a little wonky from where I was riding the middle or side of the shoulder of the road, all I'd have to do was ride the white painted line marking the edge of the highway and away the line shot way into the distance like a laser, straight as a die.
So what did I see on the Prairies? Fields of green dotted with huge round bales of brown hay that petered out into short crops of yellowing wheat flowing to the horizon so far off that it just seemed to transmogrify into sky - big sky. At my feet the soft chitinous thwock of kamikaze grasshoppers leaping up to bounce off a pannier sounded every so often.
By 5 o'clock I was in a town called Beiseker with 146km on the clock in a town earmarked for a stop and now a few days ahead of rough schedule. At 5 it's a good time to set up camp within the 4 hours of remaining daylight. I decided to cycle the 65km to Drumheller.
There seems to be no magic to making a double century (200+km) on the bike. In my case, it just takes nine hours of pedalling (and the determination not to give up short of the target).
Drumheller! Just as the sun was drawing my shadow out across the Prairies and chilling the air beyond cool. Made it! A day off seem so much more justified when you have to work for it.