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Slideshow
A slideshow of photos from my ride from Watson Lake, YT, to Kitwanga, BC, can be found at https://photos.app.goo.gl/BAcaFxX8g4v3THah7.
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Missive No. 6: Cassiar Highway Trail Magic
On August 4 I turned off the AlCan and started south on the Stewart-Cassiar
Highway. For the next 723 km (452 miles) until I reached the highway's
southern terminus in Kitwanga, I fell off the grid of cell phone service and
Internet. As surely as when I was on the Dalton Highway in Alaska and Top of
the World Highway in the Yukon, the Cassiar provided challenges, spectacular
mountain scenery, and a touch of trail magic at both ends.
Trail magic? It's a term backpackers and bike-packers use to describe
something that appears "like magic" just when it's needed. Trail magic came
to my rescue at the start of my first day. I had set out from Watson Lake on
the AlCan to the intersection with the Cassiar. Only a kilometer or so from
the intersection, my front derailleur cable broke. I was in shock. I had not
had a derailleur cable snap since my days of winter commuting in snow and
corrosive salt some 20+ years ago. Corrosive salt? Then I remembered the
equally corrosive calcium chloride used to treat the Dalton Highway. Could
that have been the cause?
I did not have a spare with me. In all the weight I am carrying that includes
things like spare spokes, I had not brought a spare derailleur cable. Why
not? Because I had used my last derailleur cables when I replaced my shift
levers just before leaving Maine. It crossed my mind then that I should carry
a spare, but I was out of time. Surely a brand new cable could be relied on
for one summer of service?
So there I was in the proverbial middle of nowhere with a now non-functional
front derailleur. I used my tools to adjust the derailleur manually so that
the chain would stay in the middle chainring. I grimaced at the thought of
450+ miles and the many hills up which I would have to push WoodsWoman, but I
had little other choice. I turned on to the Cassiar Highway.
Just a few, perhaps five kilometers later, I came to the border with British
Columbia. I pulled off the highway to read the roadside exhibit signs. I
scarcely had stopped when a northbound cyclist pulled over also. With hardly
a hello, I cut to the chase and asked if he had a spare derailleur cable. He
did. He got it out and gave it to me. This northbound cyclist was my trail
angel that day. Within minutes I had installed the new cable and was on my
way. Without this trail magic, the following days would have been far more
difficult. (I'm usually good at getting people's names, but this is one
instance, of all times, that I failed. In the photos you will see my trail
angel as the young man wearing a red helmet covered with mosquito netting.)
That first day I rode under a beautiful sunny sky and camped at Boya Lake.
The next day, however, dark clouds moved in, and a strong headwind kicked up.
I called it a day at the Cotton River rest area. With rain pouring down, I
assembled my tent inside the pit toilet and then hurriedly staked it down in a
clearing before blowing rain could get inside. I cooked dinner under the pit
toilet overhang. In the morning I prepared breakfast in the rain and packed up
a wet tent.
The sun came out intermittently that day, but I arrived in Dease Lake in a
light rain. There stood a motel, and it had a vacancy. I grabbed it.
Rain, rain, and more rain. It had seemed to rain every other day since I
entered Canada. Would it ever end?
Fortunately for me, it did. After Dease Lake I had nothing but blue skies all
the way to the southern end of the Cassiar. I took a room at the Red Goat
Lodge on my first night after Dease Lake for a simple reason: it was there.
After that I wild camped for three nights on a long stretch of highway that
does not have tourist services of any kind.
It might have been wild camping, but it came with unexpected comforts. At the
Bell I rest area, I was the dinner guest of Masud and Salma from Portland, OR.
I enjoyed a good evening of warmth and conversation in the comfort of their
RV, and we had a long goodbye in the morning. The next night at Bonus Lake I
camped next to Maury and Rob, two motorcycle tourists from Terrance, BC. In
the morning they set up their camp shower so I could wash my hair. That warm
water and shampoo, biodegradable of course, felt downright luxurious.
As I pulled out from Bonus Lake that morning, Hugo and Alicia, two cyclists
from France, were passing by on their way to Argentina. With Montana as my
end point, I'm modest by comparison. We leapfrogged each other that day and
met again in Kitwanga the next morning.
Somewhere between Cotton River and Bonus Lake, the vegetation around me
changed. My eyes were frequently looking upward at the Cassiar Mountains and
later at the Coastal Mountains to my west, but a moment came when I realized
the trees around me were no longer those of a northern forest. More and more
deciduous trees had appeared. My surroundings now had more in common with New
England than with the tundra of the Dalton Highway's coastal plain or the
boreal forest south of Atigan Pass.
It was in Kitwanga at the southern end of the Cassiar that trail magic struck
again. There is a diner at the intersection with the Yellowhead Highway, aka
Highway 16 or the Trans-Canada Highway. I had scarcely leaned WoodsWoman
against a wall when I heard a voice exclaim, "That's a Rivendell Atlantis!"
The voice belonged to Greg, a bicycle mechanic who is living a van life as he
travels all around the North American continent. It's rare that anyone
recognizes a Rivendell. Anyone who does is serious about bicycles. Greg is
exactly that.
I told Greg my derailleur story. As it happens, I had wrapped many feet of
excess cable around my seat tube because neither I nor my trail angel had a
cable cutter. Greg got his tools, cut the excess, capped the cable, and gave
me a spare "just in case."
That is the story of my week and a half on the Cassiar Highway. I spent my
last night in the RV park in Kitwanga. The next morning I turned east in the
Trans-Canada Highway. After so many weeks off the grid on remote roads, I am
back in the land of cell phone signals, frequent towns, food stores,
restaurants, and cafes. I'm taking two rest days at an inexpensive motel in
New Hazelton, BC. After all, according to my birth certificate, August 15 is
my birthday. Time to sleep in a real bed for a couple of nights.
Being "off the grid" for so much of the past two months has brought home to me
even more strongly how little one misses when one does not have Internet
access. I just spent a half hour deleting accumulated e-mails. Only 3-5
e-mails in the course of a week and a half had any importance.
In tandem, I have come to appreciate quiet and solitude even more than I did
already. I've told my tale of woe of camping in the rain and cooking dinner
under the overhang of a pit toilet. Let me now add that I enjoyed my dinner
that night as I listened to the rain falling all around me.
Lest you think that I turned totally quiet while riding the Cassiar, let me
disabuse you of that thought. Music makes hill climbing much easier. This
was show music week on my mp3 player, and I was singing along with much if it.
I've been through "Company," "Man of La Mancha," "Damn Yankees," "Godspell,"
"The Golden Apple," "The Fantasticks," and many others. "The Impossible
Dream" is a perfect accompaniment to climbing hills into a headwind. My
singing voice may have helped scare the bears away. For the entire length of
the Cassiar, I saw only two small black bears.
Having ridden 482 miles since Watson Lake, I'm rounding upward and donating
$50 in support of independent Russian journalists at TV Dozhd'. Please
consider joining me in this support to a talented, brave crew of journalists
who continue to report uncensored news in the Russian language. You can find donation links at
https://tvrain.tv/donate-en/ . Thank you to all who have joined me in supporting Dozhd'!
Do I have a rain song for the week? Of course I do. This one is from "The
Fantasticks:" https://youtu.be/CPfqFD2kfVU .
How much longer do I have on the road? I'm not riding to a schedule, but I'll
hazard that I'll reach Whitefish, MT, about a month from now. I'll write
again from Jasper, after which I'll turn south through Canada's national parks
and reenter the US at or near Glacier National Park. At least that's my plan
such as I have a plan.
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Daily Log
Thursday, August 4, 2022 -- 2868 km cum - 113 km/day
A good 70-mile day from Watson Lake to the Boya Lake campground on the Cassiar Highway, but it came with drama. For the first time I can recall this century, I had a front derailleur cable snap on me. Was it the calcium chloride on the Dalton Highway that did it? The rain? Or both? I don't know, but it broke right at the derailleur. And I had not brought a spare with me.
The break happened just before the turn onto the Cassiar Highway and just after I had spent ten minutes chatting with Mary and Burt, two Florida cyclists traveling from Deadhorse to South America. The only thing I could do was fix the derailleur to the middle chainring and go on.
Trail magic happened less than twenty minutes later in the person of a young Vancouver cyclist traveling north on the Cassiar. He had a spare cable and gave it to me. Without him, my next several hundred miles would have been that much harder. Trail magic happened today, and I hate to say that I don't even remember my trail angel's name.
Friday, August 5, 2022 -- 2929 km cum - 61 km/day
Headwind and rain. That's why this was a short day. The morning's warm sun gave way to rain and wind in the early afternoon. I'm camped in the rain at the Cotton River rest area. I set up the tent inside the pit toilet and then carried it outdoors and staked it as quickly as I could. I'm warming dinner under the overhang of the pit toilet.
My only really good news of the day is that I used a pay phone in Jade City to call ahead and reserve a motel room at Dease Lake for tomorrow and Sunday night. After a day like today, I already need a rest day.
Saturday, August 6, 2022 -- 3024 km cum - 95 km/day (writing on Suday the 7th)
It rained most of the night. I packed up the wet tent and prepared breakfast under the pit toilet overhang. By the time I was done, the rain had stopped, and the sun was coming out. Hurray! And the wind had died down. Double hurray!
Thus the first 2/3 of the ride down to Dease Lake was wonderful. I got to enjoy the Cassiar Montain scenery that was obscured in the rain and mist the previous day. But it didn't last. As I took my rest stop at the 40-mile point, the clouds thickened, and the rain returned. So did the wind. Thus for the last twenty miles of the 60-mile day, I was in my rain gear again.
I am **so** happy that I used the pay phone in Jade City and called ahead to reserve a room at the Northway Inn. Taking a shower after the previous night's wild camping was deliciously sweet. So was the bed. Today's tasks are laundry and drying out the tent.
Monday, August 8, 2022 -- 3112 km cum - 88 km/day
A shorter day than I expected due to hills -- mainly after the Stikine River -- and lots of roadwork, in particular as I got close to Iskut. There was so much loose gravel that I couldn't ride through much of this stretch. I had to walk WoodsWoman **downhill**. I had thought I would go twenty miles further, but when I saw the Red Goat Inn and that it was already 5 p.m., i grabbed the moment. I even have a simple room for the night, although I did have to cook dinner on my camp stove.
So yes, the day was shorter than I expected, but it was a good day nonetheless. Most of all, there was no rain :) .
Tuesday, August 9, 2022 -- 3221 km cum - 109 km/day
A solid 68-mile day in good weather (and headwind) to the rest area by the Bob Quinn landing strip. I think this is the first night in this entire trip that my camping site is sufficiently non-buggy for me to wipe myself off and change clothes before sitting down for dinner. I feel so much better just being semi-clean on a camping night for once!
At a rest stop along the way I met a retired couple from Tucson. They sometimes go to lunch at the Voyager! I'll have to tell Mary and Bill. Also -- Twilight Zone moment -- they knew Laurie and Ray Meininger. I'll have to tell Nat.
Today's good day should allow me to do a shorter day tomorrow and enjoy a meal at the Bell II coffee shop.
Wednesday, August 10, 2022 -- 3329 km cum - 108 km/day
Thursday, August 11, 2022 -- 3437 km cum - 108 km/day
Three almost carbon copy 67-68 mile days in a row. Amazing. I'm camped tonight at "Bonus Lake." There is a picnic table, but that's the only amenity that raises this above a wild camping site. Motorcyclists Rob and Maury were already here when I arrived. Father-daughter pair Martin and Nalene arrived later.
I didn't write yesterday because I was the evening RV guest of Massoud and Asalem, a doctor with his activist wife. Living in Portland, OR, they are of Pakistani heritage. I spent a wonderful evening in the glow of their hospitality at the Bell I rest area.
Friday, August 12, 2022 -- 3527 km cum - 90 km/day
The ride down to Kitwanga was one of the easiest in some time because, well, it was more down than up, in particular the last 10 km. I was at the intersection of the Cassiar and Yellowhead Highways by 4 p.m., and that's where the thought of going further fell apart.
It started in the good sense with Greg, a bicycle mechanic living the van life. He saw me roll up to the store at the highway intersection and exclaimed, "That's a Rivendell Atlantis!" I was happily shocked that anyone would know an Atlantis from the sight of someone riding it up to a convenience store. We talked for I don't know how long. He snipped off my excess front derailleur cable, capped it, and gave me a spare. Trail magic again!
Then I went into the convenience store, bought drinks and pizza, and settled down with my cell phone that had a signal for the first time since Whitehorse. My first order of business was to reserve a hotel room in Smithers for three nights starting tomorrow. There were none to be had. Every hotel is fully booked. Apparently there is a golf tournament in town. In despair, I reserved a room in nearer Hazelton instead. I started down Highway 16 with the idea of camping at the provincial park just short of Hazelton and then moving to the hotel tomorrow.
Then common sense kicked in. It was already 6 p.m.. There was a headwind. I backtracked to the RV park in Kitwanga instead. I'm glad I did. The forecast is for rain overnight, and I have set up my tent under a gazebo. I've showered, and I have a load in the wash.
I had a good time with Maury and Rob this morning at Bonus Lake. Rob even set up their solar shower so I could wash my hair.
As I was leaving Bonus Lake, I met Alicia and Hugo, two bikepackers from France. To my own surprise, I quickly passed them and never saw them again. Although young, they were riding mountain bikes with wide mountain bike tires. My passing them was a clear demonstration of rolling resistance at work.
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