Today is Day #15 of The Road To Valour

We decided to leave Illecillewaet early in the morning, just in case some parks workers decided to get to work preparing the campground for the opening day later this month. Before breakfast, and before coffee! unfortunately, this was a day without coffee.

Our plan was to camp out in the Waitabit Creek Campground in Donald, but given that it was pouring rain as we left and the forecast was showing no letup we decided to push on to Golden.

On today’s ride I was joined by:

• Greg Kosar
• Ernie McDonald

Stops along the Way

Stop 1

Roger’s Pass

A short distance and not too much climbing from Illecillewaet, we got to the summit of Roger’s Pass. The pass was opened to the Trans Canada Highway in 1962. The summit of the pass is 1,330 m above sea level. I remember as a kid travelling back and forth across the country with my family before the pass was opened, we would have to drive a long gravel loop around the pass. Painful in so many ways.

The Interpretive Centre at the summit was also a great spot to wash up a bit, brush our teeth and have a breakfast bagel – but no coffee.

This is also the spot where we made the final decision to push on to Golden rather than to chance the weather (it was still pouring) and camp in Donald. The Rotary Club of Golden was giving us free accommodation at the Travelodge in Golden. The plan was to see if I could negotiate a good deal for an extra night. It worked out for us ad we got 2 rooms for 2 nights and a very reasonable rate.

We passed Donald and arrived in Golden in beautiful sunny weather. The weatherman was still predicting rain for the night so we felt comfortable with our decision. It didn’t rain, but we got a chance to get some more repairs made to Greg’s bike and have a good dinner and a great night sleep in the Travelodge.

Riding The Road To Valour