While the big plan for the fall vacation was to do an extended tour of the Okanagan, West Kootenays, and anywhere else with lingering warmth in BC, I hadn't done any real bicycle touring in two years and wanted to make sure all the gear and my body were ready.
I had planned a few possible tester runs and the one that stood out was a spin south of Burns Lake to a brewery about 100 km away over some gravel backroads, returning on more logging roads through remote country southeast of Fraser Lake. It would be a good distance to complete in about 3 days and would verify my rig could handle extended gravel and some cooler mornings.
I had a leisurely morning at the rec site and carefully packed up the touring gear, trying to hit a balance of low weight and also not forgetting anything crucial. I chatted up a few locals regarding places to park my car and they all seemed to agree that the rec site was probably my best bet.
Parking the car in an empty campsite and crossing my fingers, I hopped on the loaded touring rig and headed down the road. About 100m later I was stopped by a woman who needed a picture of an "interesting stranger" for some sort of social media scavenger hunt. Boy if that doesn't describe me.
I then realized I wasn't wearing my helmet and had to retrace my pedal strokes back to the car for it.
Finally hitting the road, I headed south from Burns Lake. Several hills arose before me but I already had the touring balance in and traffic was light so I made it to the ferry at Francois Lake in good time and without incident. I timed it almost perfectly and just had time to eat a cheese bun before the ferry loaded and headed across the lake.
Heading south, I started grinding over a series of large hills (small mountains?) into a headwind that became more and more spicy as the day went on. Well, at least my luck and route planning skills remain unchanged from two years ago...
By 3pm, I was still an hour from the brewery at least, knee deep into the gravel, and already 100m above the predicted elevation gain from Google Maps. In top of this it was hot, and I made the dummy mistake of not filling my water at the perfectly convenient boat launch on Ootsa Lake.
Another hour and a half of rolling gravel hills (sometimes hitting 15% gradient) finally saw me at the 2 km long driveway to Ursa Minor Brewing, where I scared off a small bear and headed down the driveway in search of beer.
Finally rolling into the brewery, feeling like I had been beaten with a fairly big stick, I was greeted by the proprietors, who enthusiastically informed me that I was the first cyclist to ever visit them. I guess the 90 km/1200m of climbing on gravel roads is a bit of a discouragement for some.
I was the only one around so I could give them the full Denny monologue about my life while they told me about their brewing adventures.
Eventually, they brought out a map of the local logging roads and after some consultation, I decided to change my course and go west around Francois Lake to return to Burns Lake. It would cut out a lot of hills and some sketchy remoteness and would also let me take shorter days without risking running out of snacks.
The owners also then made the very generous offer to let me camp on their lawn and have dinner with them. Being an old hand at bicycle touring I obviously accepted.
After shutting down the brewery for the night, ee chased another (or maybe the same) small bear away from the lawn, with the help of their dog, and I set up my tent for the night.
I had a great dinner with them and their family and some wonderful post-dinner conversation before settling in for the night in the old trusty tent.
I woke up at 6:45 yet again and enjoyed the sunrise for 5 minutes until it started raining, then went back to sleep for an hour. By 7:45 the rain had stopped and I popped inside for coffee and eggs before walking out the the pigpen to watch the pigs get fed spent grain. I took my time packing up and filling water while saying goodbye to the adorable dogs and cat. I was sent on my way with a final treat, a bag of carrots, fresh from the garden.
All in all, not a bad payoff for a long, hard ride. I clipped into my pedals and began heading back up the driveway.
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