Day 2 started out when we woke up to find out tent quite wet on the inside & we could not work out why, when we went to get out we couldn't due to the zip being frozen!
Luckily our tent has 2 doors & we managed to extract ourselves...
The day was looking beautiful Blue sky.
We headed off down a lovely gravel road, 30mins into the ride a car coming towards us when we noticed 3 bears on the side of the road stand up at the noise of the car - it was mother grizzly & her 2 grown cubs - OH MY GOD!! The car carried on as the bears ran off back towards the trees, where they stopped to watch us pass... was a very intense moment for us! we stopped further down the road to catch our breath & to try to stop shaking!!
They were very close & this incident made was realise just how close bears can be without seeing them, so from that moment on we rung our bells & called out the rest the way to the information center where we reported our sighting ( you are required to report sightings of bears) We got to speak to a lovely Park Ranger called Nick who was very helpful & gave us good advice on bear safety, we had done everything correctly.
After having a early lunch we started the 1st crossing of the Continental Divide, this was a 6km climb of epic proportions, but we managed it quite successfully & in good time.
The top of Elk pass saw us leaving Alberta & entering BC.
The descent was fun on a relatively technical single track - especially loaded, Scott has his first fall of the bike - luckily we were not going fast so he was OK.
We hit another shingle road which we followed for the next 50km, all was going quiet nicely until the thunder clouds rolled in & poured down on us, making us stop & put the tarp up to wait it out, This made the dirt road very muddy so now as well a pushing heavy loaded bikes we are also carrying a lot of mud on our bikes.
Just as we are about to arrive at our nights campsite we spotted our 4th bear of the day this time a small black bear, when we say close to our campsite we mean basically at the entrance of the campsite, he did not at all seem concerned about us & after a few minutes he crossed the road & headed into the trees. I'm sure Mama bear was not far away which made us a little uneasy.
As we rode into the campsite we saw a mother & child so we told them about our bear sighting.
We could also hear a huge party going on, great if you like heavy metal & about ten 20yr olds drinking & smoking pot...
The campsite was by a lovely lake which they were using to knee board on whilst being towed behind a massive 'Loud' 4x4.
We decided to cook dinner here whilst talking to 1 of the young lads who came over to say 'high' & we decided we would carry on into Elkford for the night about 20km away.
We arrived in Elkford very late but just in time to get our tent up before another thunderstorm hit.
made good use of the tarp & the free showers, we were both knackered as it had been 11 1/2 hours since we stared out.
DISTANCE:112.15km
AVERAGE SPEED:15.7km
RIDE TIME:7.07hours
ASCEND:830mtrs
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