Thursday July 9, 2015

After a good breakfast and an early start we headed out on Highway 3 to Bellevue.

As we turned on to Highway 3, we saw a runner looking at something in the bush. There were two deer, one was hiding and all you could see were antlers. The other was munching on a tree.  Cars zoomed by oblivious to the wonder of nature around them.

Later on we saw a traffic sign, warning us of flying deer – we didn\’t see any.

We spotted our first touring cyclists since Hope. They were from Holland and are cycling the Great Divide. That is a tough ride. She was very enthusiastic about the scenery, but was a little concerned about bears.

We stopped in Sparwood. It has the biggest truck in the world.

It used to be used working in the mine in Sparwood, now it stands next to the tourist information office.

Sparwood was originally a collection of five coal mining communities but in the 1960\’s, the communities were consolidated into one District. It was named Sparwood in homage to the history of trees harvested in the area intended for use as masts on ships. There was some opposition to the amalgamation. However, when people moved out of there homes in the former towns of Natal and Michel the bulldozers went in and demolished the houses, even though the neighbouring houses were still inhabited. Interesting way to convince people to move out and into the “new Town” of Sparwood.

The original Sparwood logo had five stars, one for each of the consolidated communities. “Today, the new logo has just one star that represents the community prepared to continue moving forward as one”. I wonder if the original residents would agree.

We continued on to Crowsnest Pass. The road is often closed in the winter months.

It was not a hard climb as we started the day at 1,041 metres and Crowsnest Pass is at 1,358 metres, it was only a 300 metre climb.

After cresting the Pass, we passed into Alberta, and crossed the Continental Divide. The Continental Divide is where the waters from the rivers flow either into the Pacific (west) or Hudson Bay and the Atlantic (east).

The scenery changed almost immediately, to lakes and wider open spaces.

We are now in Alberta.

 

We stopped in a small café for lunch and then headed out to the campsite, we had called the campsite to reserve a spot and told her we should be there in half an hour, a short downhill to Bellevue.

However, we had not anticipated the immensity of the Frank Slide.

In 1903 a wedge of limestone measuring almost one kilometer wide, 425 metres long and 150 metres deep had broken from the crest of Turtle Mountain (approximately 90 million tons of rock). The destruction is still evident today with boulders the size of houses littering both sides of the road. Seventy people were killed in the worst natural disaster in Alberta.

We were able to secure a campsite for tonight. This weekend is the “Sinister Seven Ultra Race”. A race across the seven sisters mountain range (Crowsnest Pass), a distance of 100 miles. Some participants attempt to do it solo and others do it as a relay team. I think that is insane. I do not enjoy cycling 100 miles, but running it – crazy, especially as part of this is at night and there are bears out there.