Banff - Port of Piegan

I followed the separate bicycletrail in between Banff and Canmore. Leaving the National Parc on Sunday near Canmore I saw hordes of bicyclers not paying the entrance fee by driving on the other side of the road. Canmore was nice on Sunday, many tourists and nice weather. Three separate people recommended me to take the Spray Trail down south, a nice pitoresque road, seemed promising but..

Climbing 400 meter out of Canmore and an hour later I saw enough, I wasn't going to cycle on this road for more than 500 meters, small rocks and potholes everywhere. Road 1A led me out of Canmore up to Exshaw where I took road 40 into Kananaskis country.

Very nice wide road going up into the Kananaskis hills. This road wasn't paved before the 1988 winter Olympics in Calgary. It led the sporters and supporters into the mountains. There were no towns on this road for 105 km. Only 1 gasstation on the way where I used the magnetron to heat up the canned Chef Boyardee brol. The lady in charge of the station did it for almost 27 years , and with and iron fist.. Fixing or plugging youre tire costs 15 dollar over here, I'll remember that. Cycling up to 2,2 km out of the 1,4 km high valley I reached Highwood Pass. This is the highest paved road in Canada ! Some 10 km before the pass, the road was blocked until 15 juni, thank you god.. Cyclers could pass it and were the only people on the road for more than 30 kilometer ! Great views and NO cars on the road. The snow was plowed away from the pass but the slopes were full of snow above 1900 meter by 10  degrees. I met a couple cycling upto the hill, I asked them if it was ok to cycle up there. After a chitchat I saw the licenceplate of Marc's car - VE6HOD .. Marc and Ciel were planning for a trip to New Zealand for some time next year, by the way I was travelling. We took some pictures from eachothers bike on the top in the cold wind and I received some calorybombs from them. They drove back into the valley where I continued into the quiet forest on the eastside of the pass. Wonderfull.

It wasn't before Tuesday until I reached Longview and it's generalstore to buy some food. I slept two times for free in the woods. From here on I cycled the Cowboy Trail down south to the US-border. Beautifull weather and a heavy sidewind. For the first time I was able to contact someone on 2 meter since Vancouver. The Calgary 2 meter system was full of activity. After two I tried six meters with success to Arizona !

N7CW, Budd heared my five watts out of a vertical dipole on my Bicycle in Arizona. I reached a farm late in the evening where I wad allowed to pitch up the tent in the fields. An 93 year old man came to me while I was eating chickenwings with fries in Lundbreck, he was born in Brussels and came over here after WOII, still spoke fluid French and had a lott to tell about this place.

South of Pincher Creek I found a place to set up my tent in the garden of an interesting lady named Frances Riviere. I gladly received a paperback from her where she wrote her memoires in of her past and living in this place. You'll find more info here. We had breakfast in the morning that lasted until noon ;-)

Leaving for the US-border after noon already didn't went smoothly. The front breakhose broke somehow and fluid went out and presure was gone.. With the mountains and Glacier National Parc ahead of me it was not possible to continue like this. It should be suicide .. I tried to fix it but nope..

White considering the options I had, a 4by4 pulled over and two ladies asked me if they could help..
Well, kind of.. and I not easely say yes but ..they were so friendly to drive me to the nearest Bicycle shop in Lethbridge some 120 km further while they were driving towards Calgary after a day of doing some landscape fotographing. Kerry and Kelly were way too kind to do so. Great !

In Lethbridge we stopped in front of the bicycle shop Bert & Mac's in 1108 1st Avenue South next to the highway and after giving a go to repair the fix the break we loaded out my stuff of the car and said goodbye. They still had to drive back to Calgary ..

They had the tools and material  to make it but it seemed that some parts weren't compatibel.
So remove the Magura system in front and replaced it by a V-brake system.
They only charged me for the V-brake some 26 dollars , great people and bought me on the road again.

While mentioning over there I was searching for a place to spend the night, Arlan, a straight-forward guy that works there proposed that I could use his livingroom to spend the night. He lived south of the city and on my way out of it so - perfect ! His sister works in the Waterton Park and proposed me going over there to visit it by that should delay me another day and already saw some great stuff over there so I'll keep it for another time. We ate pasta in the evening and talked a lot about bicycling as he loves it also and is very passionate about it. He has some self made recumbents hanging on his wall in the livingroon so you can imagine..
We drove out at 08:30 in the morning and he showed me the right direction to head out of town to the US-border.

I am still in doubt in between going over the Marias Pass into the Glacier National Parc over the continental divide or keep on this - the east side - of the continental divide and go south to Yellowstone. The pass over Glacies National Parc is still closed and the snow (and there`s much of it on top) isn't removed yet.. I'll probably head for the Carway/Port of Piegan bordercrossing and go to Browning into the US and there I'll decide how to cycle on further. Weatherwise aind is from the west and showery like 30% by some 15/17 degrees over here closeby the border.

For the last 4 days I had no space nor time to hang up a 40/20 meter dipole and weatherwise it wasn't really perfect neither. Still 2 meters is a ok for a few minutes and skype and echolink are doing great ;-/
I hope to find a AT&T card in Browning later on this week.

Valemount - Banff

Some tens of miles out east from Valemount I should have been able to see the highest point in the Canadian Rockies Mnt.Robson. Nothing special to see today except for some tens of dozens RV's because of the low hanging clouds. A bit further on I had to find a camplace to make canp for the night. At 2030 local, a guard from the national parc came along to collect the fee : 16 dollars. It was the same as for an XXL camper or RV. The campsite had no shower, no running water .. nothing except for a firepit and a table..
Cycling to Jasper was easy. The lady at the entrance of the national parc - that is sone about 255 km long - didn't know what to do. Count me as a pedestrian or a car. She didn't charged me to enter the parc. OK. 

Jasper didn't really had anything else to offer to me than grocery's.
Some tens of dozens RV's and tourbusses again that spoiled the landscape. Once again I had to camp in a campingsite as camping in the wild is strictly prohibited here. I only costed about 24 dollar for one night, outrageous ! Entering the parc from the northside lead me again to an entranceport of the parc. The lady over there charged me 9.8 dollar for one day, again waaay to much to encourage cyclers to come over here. The views on the other hand were nice, some icy slopes and moutainranges could be seen one the east and westside of the valley.
The terrain elevated to a certain height of 2100 mtr ASL in the Glacier Ice Range and again further on in Bow Pass to some 2200 mtr ASL.
Steep climbs ? : I only counted two of them that lasted longer than 6 km in the highest gear in the back..

Lake Louise was not worth visiting on the way : too much tourists (Germans, French, Dutch, French speaking Canadians, Japanees, Chinees and Aussies) and the lake was way not nicer than the ones I already saw on the way.
It rained now and the temperature was around 10/15 degrees.
In the Parc I slept two times in a Youth Hostel. The campgrounds had no running water nore electricity .. The hostel had a sauna, a campfire a nice watercreeck, a kitchen, no running water nore elecricity but at least a decent bed and heating as temperatures went down to 2 degrees outside. Only some 10 people were in both youthhostels. Nice people all over the place. Again spoke some dutch with a .NL-er.

I entered Banff today in the pooring rain.. And even with sun or rain : it's a tourist trap over here. Extra-ordinary expensive and even the campgrounds are over 20 dollars for a bicyclist. It's a shame ! Cell-coverage was none-existent in the parc. The youthhostel here is the place to be again. I hope to cycle out of this parc as soon as possible since other prices like groceries and  stuff is way too high as it already was elsewhere in Canada.

I would never cycle in this National Parc again and would not recommend it to a bicyclist since it's no way cheaper as driving a car here and the views are nice and spectacular but so are the Alps and certainly the Pyrenees.
Bye bye Canada and Glacier National Iceparc here I come !
In the US it will cost me only 80 dollar to enter ALL national parcs for one year.
By the way ; I broke the 3000 km barrier today after checking my logs.

Once again I tried to contact the local repeaters on 2 and 70 in Jasper / Banff Lake Louise on different times but no success again.. Someone must still be doing the maintenance ? Strange .. I used 40 meters only once near Mnt. Robsons since I had no time for it to setup the antenna in the hostels , I rather had two saunas and campfires over there !

USA, here I come again !   

Vancouver - Valemount

On Sunday 29th. I left Vancouver by Burnaby to the east in the general direction of the city called Hope, definitively not the nicest part if town. I saw a hamradioshop in that district with some vhf and microwaves on top of the roof. Further down the broad freeway with nice shoulders I was overtaken by a Calgarian couple cycling their way to Newfoundland. Rain started to fall in the afternoon and I skipped some expensive campground to end up at a desolated one that was partially flouded.. I placed my tent under a bigger one but it was flouded in the morning by the river extending her width.. I was able to dry everything later that morning thanks to a 2kW heather in the washingroom. I think I used more electricity than 5 dollars.. For the remaining of that day I cycled for Hope, on better weather. It came as I approached it.. Did some shopping and ate some expensive pizza and stopped in Boston Bar were I put my tent at a remote place for RV-people, they allowed me to stay on the premise of a turned down building with water-hookup and room for an antenna. I once again was active on 40 meters in the streetcorner on 7177 kc. The valley were I was going trough is the Fraservalley, quite narrow and steep. The Canadian Pacific railroad goes through here and does that in almost every route up here. The Fraser has also some nice tunnels on its stretch, people warned me they were dangerous but it you're used to the Norwegian ones the inestimable over here are a childsplay. Still I switched on the ledlights and , as always, wore the fluovestje jacket. In one of the longer tunnels there was some traffic catching up on me. One car stopped just after the tunnel and the driver stepped out, should he be angry on me because I was on his road ?.. Nope, he congratulated me with the good lights I have on the bicycle. So, they are edeluxe light with a Son dynamo. The drivers name was Peter and let me try one of his favours of his drinks, Mona Vie. Very good as a matter of fact, he wanted to be active on the European market next year. It surely makes a lot of noise and they are about 1,2 km long. Leaving for Lytton the other day it was raining again. Some crazy guy was 'controlling' the city but a real officer showed me a place to setup the tent. A former landingstrip just north of the town. A helicopter and its owner that lived in his next-door RV were parked up there. Was bugged by some really nasty muskitoes over there. Cash creek the other day was the entrance to a different kind and style of landscape. It was clearly visible that this should be dessert-style hills but they weren't because of all of the recent rain. It had green plants and hushed almost everywhere ! The following day a young French guy Lionel kept up with me, he had been touring the North American continent since October last year. He was cycling to Calgary to fly back home again next week. In Kamloops I was warmly welcomed by Jim and Ann, we previously met on a campground in California. The tentpoles my brother-in-law send over to him just arrived in the mail  that day.. I had a nice meal over their place and slept very well on a clean bed ! In the morning I cycled to the downtown area of Kamloops and as the sun was shining , end up in the public parc next-to the river for an hour. Cycling back north in the valley towards Valemount I used a ferry to cross the North Thompson river. In the evening a lady - grandma Alice - invited me in her summerhouse in the back of her yard. It had running cold water and I hung up the 40.mtr dipole again. Alice sels hamburgers and stuff in the center of Barrière in her wagon so don't stop at the mainroad for the A&W but continue for the centre.. In Vavenby I slept next-to a baseball field. The very little town was empty as everybody was watching the hockeygame that was on that night between Boston and Vancouver.. As I was peddling up north again the road got steeper above 700 mtr. ASL and the hilltops were covered with snow. I ended up in Blue River were I was invited to have a dinner at Laura's place with three friends of her, I slept in the garden next to a lake of one of the friends that are into the gold-digging of this generation. On the stretch in between Vancouver and Valemount I tried every repeater on my path, like 30 of them but on none of them I got an answer after they opened up.. Are they al deaf here of is the hobby in a really fast decline into .ca ? The signals and location/coverage of the repeaters was excellent ..

Arriving in Valemount after a very sunny day and seeing a rather big brown bear 5 meters next to me of the road .. people gave me some tips on where to find a good spot. But, al of a sudden Lionel was standing in front of me again ! He had found a place to sleep trought warmshowers and asked him if I could camp with him also, it turned out that it was no problem. I met Tom who was a carpenter over here and enjoyed dinner with all of us. Tomorrow I head out into Alberta and into the Jasper National Parc. It will be a great route and many glaciers will be visible. Right now I'm at a height of 800 mtr. ASL in the valley and it will go up to a 1450 level into the Parc where many bears live and no trucks above 4,5 ton are allowed..

Port Angeles - Vancouver

After arriving in Port Angeles on tuesday 24th May, I could pay a visit to James, WF7W or take last the ferry of the day in 30 minutes and go to Canada. I chose for the latter and took the ferry. After arriving in the nice port of Victoria I had to go through the Canadian customs as a `foot passenger`. Even with a bicycle.. The customguy was quite relaxed as he asked me : 'so tell me, what brings you here ?'.. I started telling my previous expierences and soon he told me to stop and placed a stamp in my passport 'Valid for 6 months' so I'll stick around some time longer. Hopefully the next 5 bordercontrols will also have a happy ending.

In Victoria I could go and search for a place to set up the tent again but two day ago Andy, VE7VAW had a QSO with me on 2 meter and invited me to come over. We kept contact by radio and phone and some 10 minutes after clearing customs he bicycled into town to come and 'pick' me up. We cycled to his home in the more residential area near Victoria passing some nice markers nexto the coast as there was the 0-km marker of the TransCanadian Highway 1. Yes, it's kilometers and kg all over again.. Andy proposed to use his guestroom and join for dinner the evening. He is married to Nelly, who was born into PA-land.. She still spoke Dutch so it really was nice to speak it again but now face to face. We saw on TV how the icehockey-team of Vancouver - the 'canucks' won the West coast conference.
The other day Andy took me on the bicycle for a trip through town ; we saw the downtown area, the floatplanes landing in the harbour and met with two friend of Andy to discuss the route to follow after visiting Vancouver. It will depend on the weather .. Afterwards we headed to a shoppingmall to search for a new Canadian SIM-card that was compatible with my EU-HTC phone. To keep a long story short ; in Vancouver I found out that only Rogers Wireless was compatible but only with Edge, sortlike in the US with ATT and T-Mobile.  My Canadian number is +1 778 6689074 and it costs me 0.25 dollar for receiving incoming international calls but no datalimit ;-) Rogers has no coverage North of Lake Superior and in some National Parks.

Back at his house we had a loveley dinner with the family with witloof - inderdaad - and nicely done meat, soup and dessert. One of the more (the most) decent meals I had in a long while.
I was able to listen and talk on 40 meters with the HF-set of Andy and the local BEARS-group had a meeting that evening and a test of their communication where we could go to but there was no time enough to do it all in a orderly fashion.

In the morning I took of again and drove with Andy to the meeting place just North of town where Nelson VE7FTL would go to. He is a local bicycle mobile HAM and proposed to join me and show me how to ride the stretch to Sidney where I would take the - bigger - ferry to Vancouver.
He used a Slim Jim on the back of his foldable bike and a small portable VHF transmitter. We had some coffee on the way and did some talking about the hobby. Nelson is a cartoonist - more work of him is on http://www.nelsondewey.com/
We said goodbye some 15 minutes before the boat set sail to Vancouver, rain was pooring down. I reached Vancouver at 7 o`clock in evening and saw two orcas during the boattrip ! There is snow on the mountains surrounding Vancouver at about 1 km up..
There was bicycle transport in a tunnel just before Vancouver where three other bikers joined me in the little bus. It was for free.
Cycling was quite easy in the city of Vancouver since it had some seperate bicyclelanes.

I booked for 4 nights into the local Downtown Youthhostel but only used 3 since I'm ready to leave on sundaymorning the 29th. May.
Nice hostel just out of the citycentre. Lots of young people around and some other bikers, talked with Polish, Canadian, French, US, Turkish, Swedish and German boys/girls. I did my third shaving in more than a month now and I'm really getting grey now..

I did some sightseeing in the city on foot and on bicycle.
You can see the route of the trip on the APRS-page.
The city-center is very crowded and modern/clean looking but rather expesive. I bought some Cannondale legwarmers (extendible cyclepants) since it is still snowing on my route up North and a longer USB cable for the HTC.
I went out on fridaynight to take in some calories in the local Irish pub and had some Guiness's before I went to the cinema.
Here the movie 'Hanna' was shown, vy nice movie and very recomendable watch the trailer here .
The filmmusic was written by The Chemical Brothers.
The movie will not be released before 6 Juli in .be
The city center of Vancouver at midnight looked and felt very different than during rushour ;-)

I had some 3 QSO's on 2 meter in Vancouver - a city of some 3 million inhabitants and more than 20 repeaters in an area of 10 miles wide.. I called on al of them and only 3 came back during 3 days .. not too much activity if you asked me. I'm ready all the way to go up to Kamloops and thereafter I decide if I go on to Jasper or divert directly to Banff. Right now the flux is going up to 101 again so ..

I'll try to do 40 meters here in the evening from 04 to 05 UTC on 7177 kc if all goes well and 20 meters 14306 if flux is above 120 from 05 to 06 UTC.

Raymond - Port Angeles

I had a nice meal at Tatchers and Vince's place in Raymond ; a BBQ-ed porcsteak and a good shower. I slept in the tent in his yard. His mother gave me a selfmade nicely coloured hat that will keep my head warm way up north into Canada. It will be giving me good luck on my journey, she said. I believe her, thank you ma'm, you've got a very generous son. I talked in the evening on the 7177 net with his TS440 and a wireloop antenna. He is active as a races member and already helped people that way. Watched some tv on the very big screen in his livingroom in the evening. He helped me soldering some electrical stuff that came loose during the journey. I charged my batteries and had a nice breakfast ; a real sandwich with roastbeef and vegetables and a layer of sauce in-between. Said goodbye to them in the morning and drove into the city of Raymond where I stumbled upon Marc. He was cycling from Seattle to Miami over the westcoast. He's a French citizen and.. has almost the same bicycle as I do. A Koga signature but a 26-model where I have a 28. He's retired and also enjoys cycling around. He also keeps a blog on http://www.marc-hummel.fr/

Godspeed Marc !

I continued north to Aberdeen and Hoquiam. Both cities sunk away into the recession, Aberdeen had a great role as a port for exporting cedar-wood out of the Olympic National Park. In Hoquiam I met an 84 year old man that had a radioroom in his oldstylegarage. He fixes remote controlled devices that sound a horn when chopping down trees. He also was into cb-radio and the carbussines some decades ago. He has a radiolab that dates back to ... I don't know but it shurely is not from after 1970.. He didn't allow taking a picture of him, kind of camerashy.

Driving upto Humptulips in the National Parc, I was looking for a place to pitch up my tent for the night. When entering the town I asked a man in his garden if he knew a nice place to tent. He replied ; next to my crick. Well, it seems that he had a watercreek on his premise where it was very nice to pitch up the tent. I was some 300 meters away from his house. While setting up , his three young  grandchildren that were there on a visit, al sons btw.., came over to me and gave me two burgers and a gatorade bottle. They were doing a BBQ and had some 'leftovers'. They even offered me three dollars that I kindly refused ;-)

In the evening I had a nice conversation with Mr. Anderson - who had Norwegian ancestors - and was offered some freshly baked cookies and roasted meatsticks to enjoy on the way. Seems that he has family all-over the place and he worked into the town as a dockworker during the early years after WW2. His wife then had some rather popular ancestors in Tombstone .. In the morning I received an oakmeal breakfast and some hot coffee that woke me up. Going up strong again I ended up in Kalaloch where I camped in the Statepark thats located just next-to the Pacific Ocean. Great views and said goodbye to the great Pacific for this trip.. I met a rather of-the-world-guy in his 50's over there that was cycling because of psychological reasons.. He drove a Peugeot cycle dating from the 70's. We had some beers and clifbars while listening to my 817. In the morning he was already gone at 8 o'clock. The crows stole some bread from me.. Cycled trough the vampiretown of Forks where the Twilight saga movies were filmed. I saw that movie once but remind that I felt asleep while watching it..The town really thrives on the tourists coming over there to explore the Twilight-town. There's a filmposter , or more , in -every- shop, bizar. Weatherwise it's still around 60-65 F and clouded with from time to time a rainshower ... The wind is still's blowing from the north / northwest .. I saw the lots of snowpeaked mountains in the Olympic National Parc / rainforest and new also the 7965 feet high mount Olympus.

I slept in between Fairholm and Sappho on a public and free campground in the woods. Had some nice contacts on 40 meter, had a really high hanging dipole there. The place was being cleaned in the morning by 7 inmates wearing orange shirts, being guarded by only one officer. On the borders of Lake Cresent I met Mitch, who was walking the 300 mile stretch around the Olympus peninsula for charity. From Port Angeles I will take the ferry over street of Juan de Fuca into Victoria, BC Canada.