Waking up in beautiful Rossland, I enjoyed breakfast and coffee with my wonderful hosts before slowly packing up, finding my sunglasses and rolling into town to fill my thermos and buy groceries. The grocery store, Ferraro Foods was a-mazing. Great bakery and so many cool little items I wished I had room and use for.
Eventually I got the prep squared away and hit the road. Long, long, and very steep descent into Trail. Glad I came in from the other way, I would not recommend trying to climb the hill from Trail to Rossland on a loaded touring bike. It looked pretty daunting. Luckily I was going down and scored some easy kms to start the day.
Crazy shift from the wet, cool, mountainous forest of Rossland down into the dry, scrubby, almost savanna-like valley of the Columbia River. I had another Warmshowers host waiting 65 km away in Nelson, so I took an easy day in the valley heat, and worked a little into a headwind up the valley.
Rolling into Nelson, my host was occupied until after 5 pm so I began the brewery tour with Torchlight Brewing. Decent variety and very bold flavours. Next up was Backroads which opted more for subtle flavours and good use of hop varieties. Backroads also had many german and wheat ales on tap, which I really enjoy.
I then hopped on my bike and slowly (I was carrying a lot of beer weight) biked over to my hosts place, where she cooked me an awesome steak dinner before going to bed. Thanks Laurie!
The next morning, I woke up, got caught up on news in the bike racing world and headed out for coffee and a trip to Nelson Brewing to complete the tour. Unfortunately, Nelson Brewing wasn't even open, so I had to grab a repeat beer at Torchlight. I'll just have to finish the beer tour another trip.
I took a super easy afternoon and pedalled along the lake to Balfour, catching a late afternoon ferry across to Kootenay Landing. By the time I made the crossing, it was already 4:30 pm so I rolled into the next campground, complete with hot tub, for the night. I ran into a mother and her two young sons who are biking across to Quebec, having previously met them in Christina Lake. Caught up with them on their last few days of adventures and traded notes on future plans
Waking up early the next day (today), I felt strong and fast and decided the side trips were over. Time to get out of BC.
Wellll, I still had about 350 km of BC so not quite that dramatic. I did however clock in a strong day to Yahk, BC (115-ish km). I have a host lined up in Fernie in twi nights so I can't get too crazy on distance tomorrow, but I hear Cranbrook has a good brewpub, so there might be some time to kill there...
Either way, should be crossing the final peak into Alberta in 3 days!
Side note: Talk to locals but don't trust them. I had several people tell me it was all flat from Creston to Cranbrook. Turns out its 100% uphill for 35 km to Yahk, with a fairly good kicker of a hill at the end. Jerks!
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