Canadian Heat Waves
I went to Canada for the singletrack. I’m going back for the singletrack.
To be sure, my first ride in BC wasn’t anything to write home about. It looked great on Trailforks, but it was just miles and miles of overgrown weeds and double-track (which, somehow, TF showed as blue). It was also 102 degrees that day. I did not plan for 102 degrees in Canada.
After a very long first night of listening to Kiva pant like she was going to spontaneously combust, I decided to abandon the no-frills campground I had booked for the week and find one that offered electricity. My solar panels are good, but not good enough to run the AC.
My little swimmer girl knows how to keep cool during a heat wave.
And then there's Kiva's version of "swimming".
What we discovered next turned out to be one of the highlights of this trip. The municipal campground in Golden, BC had sites available that offered electricity, and it was actually affordable. Mind blown.
Golden wasn’t on my list of places to hit in Canada. I had been snowboarding at Kicking Horse decades ago, but didn’t really spend any time in the town. And it wasn’t on my radar as a MTB destination. Girl, was I surprised!
The campground was situated along the Kicking Horse River, and right on one of the feeder trails for the in-town bike trails. And … AND … there was a FREE BIKE PARK less than a mile’s ride from my campsite.
Smokey sunset walk along the Kicking Horse River.
Municipal bike park right in town. Hey Ridgway - see this?
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m totally committed to getting my MTB skills dialed in before my coach certification exam later this summer. While park features aren’t part of my Level 1 exam, I still end up coaching them - particularly small drops and jumps - at camps. I’m also highly motivated to just be a better rider myself. The only way to get confident on those features is to develop the muscle memory by riding them over and over and over and over. That’s hard to do if you have to pay for a lift ticket at a resort/park, or if you don’t have a backyard where you can build features. So to find a FREE park, with all the features I needed to practice on, just a stone’s throw from my campground was dope. So dope that, after Lake Louise, I returned to the same campground for a few more days of practice.
My technique still isn’t perfect (which would be boring) but it’s a hell of a lot better than it was a few weeks earlier.
Golden also had some rad singletrack - one system accessible from the campground and another just 15 minutes away. I could totally live here. Did I mention they had a free bike park?
Flowy bench-cut singletrack makes me smile.
This was a blue. A BLUE. Damned Canadians.
Golden was also an impossibly cute town. Just enough visitors to keep the economy thriving, but not overrun with tourons. There was a great dog-friendly brewery and lots of dog-friendly swimming along the river, both of which were absolutely necessary in the 100+ degree heat.
Too hot. (No, not me, the weather.)
"One more throw, Mom!"
I loved Golden so much that I was able to convince Jeremy to leave the 74-degree temps of Lake Louise to come over for a couple of days (this is before he left LL for his doomed adventure in Jasper). About the only outside activity we could handle was paddleboarding and drinking beer. #globalwarmingisreal
Beer, dog, water. What else did I need?
Kiva was back in the AC. Paddleboards are scary.
"Talk to the hand - I'm napping here!"
Smokey sunset from the pedestrian bridge in-town Golden.
Although I loved Golden, I’d done pretty much everything I wanted to do there, and there was more Canadian singletrack to be discovered before crossing the border back down to Idaho. I’d been curious about Fernie for awhile, and there just happened to be a (completely unaffordable) RV park that had availability and electricity. I only had 2 days - timewise and budgetwise - so I had to cram a lot in.
The river (and killer views) behind the RV park. Note the adorable dog face at the bottom.
How am I supposed to focus on the trail when these are the views?
Fernie trails are FUN! #singletrackaddict #eskerinthewild
Does every Canadian town have a municipal bike park? Fernie's wasn't as dope as Golden, but it was still a fun playground.
Can you believe the trails led me right to the brewery? It was like they knew I was coming!
I only had two days in Fernie on this trip, so I didn’t get to explore the actual town at all. Maybe next time. Because there will be a next time. Probably next week.