Bozeman - Yellowstone

On Friday I cycled to Bozeman and arrived there in the late afternoon. The weather was great, as was the refreshing shower at Jerry's place. His XYL Kathy, was also a ham. By early evening and after getting stuff ready for the fieldday Jerry and I drove towards the fieldday QTH in Belgrade, just west of Bozeman. The W7ED fieldday-station was going to be setup in the backyard of Dale, W7NAV. Lots of place over here and big trees on the edge of the premise. Rich, KF7LVE , Don KC7EWZ , Don N7FLT and were already on the site. The caravan aka fieldday-shack was already in place and the mast for the beam had to be crancked up. There was also a second station for 20 and 40. Inverted V's and dipoles were used on the lower bands. We installed the camper and made a BBQ for the two of us that evening and sat under the shelter that Rich had already set up. Jerry made some nice breakfast the next morning before some 10 of us cranked up the tower and got the station up and running. Don, or Mr. Wilson, proposed me to do some needed repairs on my coax in his place in Bozeman. He learned me how to wrap up wires without tangling them up. I did some foxhunting on 2 mtr. and found, eventually with some help and patience, 5 foxes in the nearby woods. By the evening some 30 people showed up for the big club BBQ. Much from everything and all way too good. Ate a bit from everything and some kg's of meat and pasta brought my fatlayer back into business. During the BBQ I met many other HAM's from the club that showed up with xyl or children. One of them, and certainly not the least is Robert, W7LR, the ON-suffix UN and WW were very well known by him. You should QRZ him..

I manned the station with Don/FLT during the night until 0430. I slept some 3 hours before another one of Jerry's nice breakfasts. We ended by noon with some 800 qso's in total. I heard almost exclusively US and Canadian stations on 80, 40 and 20. By mistake I heard and LA and OM station on 17..

The weather continued to be perfect. We broke the station down and it was time to say goodbye to the bunch of HAM's of Bozeman and around. I'll always have a very nice memory on this fieldday over here.

Jerry and I drove back to his QTH were we tried to find out what had to be the best way to enter Yellowstone. It was some 120 km. until the west entrance. The best option was to take the , on Monday very busy and narrow road 91 that lead into the Parc. A bus brought me halfway and from here I cycled the remaining part of Monday to the entrance. Jerry brought me with his car very early in the morning to one of the stops just outside the city after being his guest again over at his house and heaving a pancake breakfast and a BBQ , again ;-) , on sundayevening.

The campsites on the southern loop of Yellowstone are quite bicycle friendly, 6 dollars for 1 night and free coffee in the morning made by the local rangers. The entrance for a bicycler in the Parc was 12 dollar for a 1 week period ! The roads were very narrow and again, many big RV's, cars, 4by4s, campers and noisy moto's on the road. I saw many bison, elk, deer and other wildlife. No bears dough over here, but, so goes the story, they are definitely here. I visited the tourist mekka of the Parc, Old Faithfull, and many other geisers, pottholes with mudd or steam and also the Yellowstone canyon. I took my time to visit them. Almost I got driven of the road by a rental RV that was driving stupidly.. I found out that shouting out dirty language isn't so difficult.. I met Bojan, a friendly and wise Slovenian bicyclist. I also met Paul from Australia and Jack from Holland the next night on the camping. There were almost 12 bicyclers on the bike and hike place. There is always place for bicyclers here on the camping ! Good to know.

It was interesting to find out that my gasleaks were smelling like sulfer after two days :-) .

I was radioactive every evening and morning on 40 and one time on 20. Conditions were so and so. Again, many people were qrv on 7177. I cycled out of Yellowstone on Friday and left the 2000+ mtr. high caldera behind me after doing some nice climbing to 2760 meter ASL. I slept again on a cheap campplace with self registration fee just outside the Parc.

Over here I met Bob and Sue from Salt Lake who were on a small trip. I headed out for Cody,Wyoming the next day and the kilometercounter showed 4600 km..

ps: click in the right column on June for more pics for the fieldday and Yellowstone or go to http://www.gallatinhamradio.com

Port of Piegan - Bozeman

'have a nice day', the border control officer told me after checking my visum and ID. He asked me where I was going but didn't payed real attention to it. There I was, back into the US and into nomandsland. I was still cycling very close next-to the Rocky-Mountains and the cold westernly winds were anoying.. Still it was better than the rain or headwind. Going south to Babb I learned that the going-to-the-sun-road was still blocked by heavy snow. I decided to cycle to Browning and then to Great Falls, I'll stay on this side (east) off the continental divide for this trip. Leaving Babb , like ten houses or so.., took me to a desolated campground. The grass was growing out of control and the reception area was a mess. I think they went out of bussiness last year. The campgrounds were empty except for a young Canadian/London couple that were exploring BC and the Rockies. Since there were some nice buildings like sanatary and cookingplaces that were deserted lang ago, I took the decision to sleep into the ladies restroom that looked ok to sleep on the ground. I blocked the door and slept until I heard a car stopping. The guys were about to fish in the lake the next morning. Time to go and after another 2 kilometers I had my second flat tyre. A small metal paperclip went into the middle of the tyre where the kevlar should've protected it.. Bad points for Schwalbe this year on these tyres.. After fixing it I cycled into St. Mary, the port to Glacier National Parc. I went to the grocery store and took a look to the extraordinary hotelchain into the little town. Since the pass was still blocked by some meters of snow I went southbound to Browning but ... some hills were standing in the way. A few hills - the biggest one was 2,1 km high - were conquered during the day. I fell into Browning cycling upto 65 km/u with backwind. In Browning I found a gasstation to buy some food and.. I ran away out of town rather quickly. Some of the most poorest and most drunk native Americans were literally hanging out on the streets over here. They were not aggressive but had the tendency to clamp on to you to ' get some money for a sandwich'. If you replied that you'll buy one for him, he dropped of.. strange isn't it ? Well, the local Radioshack was closed so I had to cycle two more days to Great Falls to the next store where I could buy a AT&T simcard. I pitched up the tent in the stoney prairies some fifteen miles southeast out of Browning. The owner of the land , a native American gave me permission. Later that evening I contacted the streetgang once again on 40 meters. The next day I headed for Choteau.

After a nice beafsteak and fries-meal in Dupuyer for 9$ and finding out that my portabel 70/2 antenna needs to be soldered again at some point at the coil in the middle of it, I arrived in Choteau. On qrz.com I found that there was a OM living around here. David,AD7BK had a swr-meter but no soldering-iron. A buddy of his brother had one. He was a kind of dangerous looking MC-guy and Vietnam vet. that I normally don't hang around with and since it was fathersday he celebrated it with his daughter and granddaughter. Rick lived in a house together with Joyce, they proposed me to pitch up the tent in their backyard and so I did. I bought some beers and piza for all of us and drunk our way into the night.. My nicotinelevels are filled up again .. In the morning they served some breakfast for me and I went on the road again to Great Falls this time to buy the simcard that I found over the into the late afternoon. Cycling out of the city I met Mr. Delano who was spraying his frontyard. I needed some water to fill up the bottle and asked some to him. Hey gave me a Mountain Dew pop and a little time later his kind wive served me a meal with freshly made chickensoup and sandwiches ! I met all the family of them who were over there to have campfire in the garden later that night in wich I gladly participated. We talked a lot and I met Dirk, a fireman in town who was one of the sons of Delano. They made me breakfast in the morning with everything on it and made me lunch to take along the road, great people !

Cycling to the south upto Belt, I discovered that my refill AT&T card doesn't hook up with remote 900 Mc towers. I could see them but it was a no-go for my desire. It was possible with my Mobile Vikings simcard but not with proximus.. Edge is no problem on 1800 mc towers but their coverage is smaller.

I stopped for the day north of Neihart on a Stateparc campground with ten places with no-one on it.. I Hung up dipoles for 20 and 40 and was able to work Europe again ! UA3TCJ and RW4WB/3 who gave me 5 by 5 , not bad ! I heard 9A9A, DF2PY and a pileup from EU to some DX that I couldn't hear. I worked some NA-stations on 20 and once again some guys of the streetgang on 40 meter on 7177 Mc.

After sleeping quite well I headed up into the mountains to a height of 2,25 km into the Kings Hill Pass. I tried 6 meters once again but no successs this time. 2 meters was also quite dead here, except for the local repeater for the 50 or so people living in Neihart were I visited the recommendable grocerystore with at least 5 gossipwoman al over 60 years old waiting for you :-)

Cycling into White Sulphur Springs I didn't found a place to sleep quite easily. I tried the local expensive campground who asked me 20$. I got in for 10 ! Great showers and fireplace and lots of old kind RV-people who gave me fruit, meat and bread all over. Some of them were Vietnam veterans and could talk.. After a long morning cycling into the heavy headwind and going up I reached Clyde Parc after I went trough Wilsall were I met .. Billy from the rockgroup Morphene .. while I was there sitting out in front of the local grocerystore eating a banana and drinking milk.. He asked where I came from and he replied that he knew Belgium very well and he did. He stood on stage on almost all of the concerts like TorhoutWerchter , Pinkpop, the Botanique, Rugged, Antwerp conscienceplace etc..

He toured in Europe for months with K's Choice and knew Sarah quite well. He also toured here in the US with DEUS and knew the size of Toms underwear hahi.. Incredible isn't it. This is really the outback here.. He stopped making music because one of the bandmembers died on-stage in Italy of a fatal heartstroke. Nowadays he's doing some farming over here.

I wanted to ask him more intelligent questions but since I'm not into Rock and Roll we talked about other things. I wished Tanguy or any other R&R guy was here .. Well, he had to go with a sixpack in one hand to take care for the animals and I took off also into the thunderstorms which I could avoid somehow.

I reached Clyde Park and found a place in the gardenhouse of a young guy named Grant, to sleep in. Grant went away to Bozeman for the weekend. I tried the local repeater and Garry, KD7WLX replied. He invited me by radio to come over to the ARRL fieldday of his radioclub in Bozeman for the weekend !

Whow, that will defenitly be another great experience ..

Another dream coming true so close to Yellowstone ..

So many wonderfull and great things and people all over this trip, just wááy to great !

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..