Exit, pursued by a bear

Today beat me.

It was always going to be difficult even after having studied the steep elevation charts with guidance from Rawley, but I'd travelled thousands of miles and made it through many a mountain top path so surely a little pass at the bottom of the Rockys was surmountable.

I was 20miles in and had been battling endless crappy trail surfaces before I reached a sign stating that the pass was closed for the season. My jaw dropped. This would have been a little more useful 20 miles earlier. I had no data reception so couldn't figure out whether it was correct or just forgotten about from a previous closure. On close inspection my offline maps showed the pass with the words "closed Jul-Oct" - but, but, but...my brain stuttered, trying to figure out why a pass would be closed for such a seemingly weird few months.

Surely this wasn't right? Perhaps it meant only road traffic? Perhaps it was left out from last year? Perhaps the reason it was closed was now resolved?

If I ignored the sign, and it really was closed further up, then I'd run the risk of having to depressingly double-back. If I ignored the sign and something bad happened it might be unlikely any help would come by...possibly for months.

Hmmm

So of course, after great deliberation, and in true arrogant-Rick style, I decided to ignore the sign.

Onwards!

But another hour in and the road had deteriorated. A dirt track mix of powder and babies-skull size boulders, which slipped out from under the rear wheel on every spin, forced two hours of immensely demotivating slower-than-walking-pace uphill bike pushing.

Manhandling a really heavy bike up a hill in 36°C heat, wearing almost-no-grip cycling shoes, ain't fun. I was slipping every other step and the bike veered dangerously in the gravel mounds edging towards the drop below.

In the back of my mind I started to chastise myself as to how stupid it was to ignore the 'Pass Closed ' sign - if anything happened it might be months before someone else came this way.

Then I heard something rumbling behind me.

A vehicle was coming up the track....I mentally prepared a statement of apology to what was probably some sort of ranger but weirdly turned out to be a small city-type car rounding the bend with a couple in it. I waved them down, rambled through greetings, explained the trouble I was having and paranoia as to whether it was passable, and asked whether they'd seen the sign or knew if it was open. They both looked at me blankly. Something wasn't right. Asking whether they were from around here it turned out they were Dutch tourists in a hire car. I laughed. At least if they went ahead and came back because it was impassable I'd have early warning. They smiled at me with encouragingly parental-style smiles before simultaneously shouting "Success", and driving on.

45miles of climbing, pushing, sweating and complaining later I reached the summit and praised the powers that be, but it was a little early for prayer. The decent trail surface was marginally better but at nearly 30% gradient Perry was almost unstoppable as we rocketed down, disk brakes screaming in protest, dodging rocks, boulders, gravel piles and hurtling past cars that had had to stop when their brake pads had overheated in acrid clouds of smoke and dust.

The level of concentration and microsecond-course-corrections needed to seek out the path of least fatality at this crazy speed was draining the few remaining ounces of energy I had when I looked down at my phone and realised it wasn't there.

Without the phone I had no communicators, sure, that was a given, but it was also master of all routing, banking, emails, dual -authentication, visas and flight details, let alone my entire n journey's photo log.

I squeezed the brakes as hard as possible and when we finally skidded to a halt, I looked back; there was no sign of the phone on the road.

I had no choice but to re-climb the mountain to find it.... and quickly.... before it was run-over by the next car.

With the bike parked (I couldn't even entertain the idea of cycling up), I started back up the hill, half running, half walking, in a weird hobble; my tired aching legs complaining at every steep scrambling step. 15 sweating minutes in and still no phone but a car appeared... actually the same hiker I'd chatted to at the top....I flagged him down, explained, and with a huge grin Johannes shouted to jump in. We sped back up, at first in reverse then, realising this was a crazy plan, he turned and climbed until finally coming across the phone - thankfully still in one piece!

...

Shaking from all the adrenaline-fuelled craziness I glided, numbly, down into Kootenay Bay and onto a surreally calm ferry across Kootenay Lake to Balfour.

WS hosts Dave & Carol didn't know what hit them.

A beer, some stuttered chat, then they put me to bed.

To sleep, perchance to dream.Read more