Today is van-it day - we shuttle from the Hotel some 320 odd kms to Banff National Park and our lunchtime stop at Muleshoe Picnic Area. Traveling along nice looking rolling roads is extremely frustrating as the route looks eminently rideable and the weather is perfect. Still, as we progress, it's pretty clear that there is not much along the way in terms of accommodation or feed stops out here at cycling distances, so maybe it's for the best.
We follow the edge of mountains - initially I take photos but the crushing weight of being in the van soon dulls that view. Later we pass thru' more open rolling prairie 'ranch' country, with the mountains receding off to our left. We go thru' a patch of country which is big on wind power: the huge fans on the turbines stand out from miles away and as we approach they assume immense proportions, standing like sentinels surveying the surrounding fields. It occurs to me that their presence signals the omnipresent force that turns them - another reason for not cycling here?
Pit stops and snoozes accumulate as we seem to inch our way toward our destination. Emily, a charming young lady along on the trip with her boyfriend David and his family, takes the opportunity of the van ride to catch up on some reading, but it evolves to a quick snooze on the backseat of the van, more reading, more snoozing etc.
I'm being driven slowly insane by the van rocking and engine hum, so resort to the rather antisocial escape of my iPod. At some stage someone says something to me - being an old rocker I don't hear as I've got my iPod turned up, Ala Spinal Tap, to '11'. Noticing some grins, I surreptitiously turn down the volume to hear someone say "...it's one way to tune out". Am hoping my sometimes prevalent insular nature isn't causing too much anti-Len feeling, but at this point I'm just about to go postal!
Here's a calming pic of one of the many peaks we passed - IN THE FREAKIN' VAN!:
Also a pic of a popular grass skiing resort - this sport really is huge over here, honest!:
(Note: the above is fictitious - it's just a snow ski resort sans snow!)
After an eternity, we arrive at our lunch spot. By this stage my brain is fried and I remember little of lunch, or the spot itself. I do remember pulling on cycling clothing, getting my bike handed down off the roof racks and the joy of being back in the saddle again! And lo and behold - the morning's promise was true: Jacob is cycle-clothed up and ready to go. Good thing too - he should cycle more: he's good because he weighs less than several kilos, has long cycling legs and looks like Alberto Contador the 2007 Tour de France winner.
Off we go, up Bow River Valley along the Bow Parkway (why do they call these roads 'Parkways' - there is no room to park?) towards our destination, Deer Lodge at Lake Louise. I ride up to Julie - her partner Jabe has abandoned her to do the childish 'man-dance' thing with other testosterone fueled brethren up ahead. I snort inwardly at this pathetic attempt to affirm one's manliness (a practice I will never partake in on the tour!) and chivalrously offer to ride with her and provide a bit of a windbreak. (At this point I will say that all the above re: Jabe is literary license: he is a thoughtful, caring and constant riding companion to Julie, who tolerates his presence and only tells him to go away when his innate competitive urge senses there is some lamer like me ahead going up a hill and is dying to be passed).
After some minor adjustments to on-road speeds (such that I am left with the cheering but false impression that I am doing my part to provide a tow, whilst Julie is happy enough with our dawdling progress at my slovenly pace that she isn't immediately driven to point out my utter uselessness) we commence a lovely ride upon rolling roads amongst clean forests. It's a perfect day for a ride.
At one point we come upon roadworks - a new section of road is being constructed. Traffic is restricted to one half of the road and the mobile stop sign is against us! Bleh! The operator of said sign, a rather bored looking lady in a traditional roadie ensemble of boots, plastic pants and vest adorned with eye-gougingly bright flouro colours and complete with last decade's fag-hanging-out-of-mouth look, eyes us suspiciously: how to deal with a bunch of cyclists (another unrelated bunch of riders has snuck up behind us) with a procedure that accounts only for cars? Her solution is brilliant - make us stand on the other side of the road (where the cars soon coming the other way will run us over) and let the cars piled up behind us thru' first!
So, dodging cars both ways, we eventually are 'allowed to pass' and we move on, gloating on the fact that at least at the other end cars will be held up by us! Haha! We arrive at the other end just in time to see two huge dump trucks pelting down the wrong side of the road against the stop sign: again we stop and wait for fear of our lives. I shake my head in wonderment - the lolly pop holder at this other end of the construction (a male identikit of the previous female) looks at me as if to say 'So what?'. *Sigh* - everyone is a potential power-junky!
The bonus of all this is that the next few kms are on baby-bum smooth roads - pedalling is a mere trifle.
Julie and I come up to a layout and statue on the right identified as Castle Mountain Internment Camp - it sparks our interest and we hop off to investigate. During the First World War, the Canadian government interned a large-ish number of peoples from the Austro-Hungarian empire (mostly Ukrainians but also some Canadian citizens of such descent) in this place as a security measure. Like the WWII internment of American citizens of Japanese descent, the futility and inhumanity of the policy is apparent now, hence the memorial. Visitors have covered the statue with coins - not sure of the significance of the gesture but it seemed right. It occurred to me that internment is a political solution to a social problem - today in Australia, the Howard government proudly boasts about how its record of immigrant internment has stemmed the flood of 'illegals' to this country: meanwhile thousands of genuine refugees rot in these places on the off chance that some may be 'non-genuine' or a 'threat'. I'd send the policy makers to this sad spot in Canada where we stand, but I doubt they'd see the real picture.
Below is a picture of the statue: why I'm grinning like a moron is beyond me. My only defense is that I hadn't read the story engraved on the nearby plaque yet:
Continuing on, we spy Jabe rolling the other way: he has as usual come back for his girl! Together we all tootle on across the rolling terrain until, descending a short hill, I feel the rear of my bike starting to pogo - bleh, another flat, rear wheel this time. Strangely enough, it's a semi-flat - neither flat nor full and in stasis! So, I tell Julie and Jabe to go on and I'll wait for the van and its foot pump (my pump is crap and wouldn't put anything more in this tire).
2 minutes later I'm jack of that game and decide that I'll ride the remaining few kms to Deer Lodge on my front wheel! Well almost - standing out of the saddle, I lean forward and put most of my weight over the front and off I go. This works pretty well and I gain confidence and speed. Going up a hill, I hear a shout behind me: "yeh, go Len". It is Alisa (they let her out of the van-cage she continuously drives) and she mistakenly thinks (I assume) that I'm pounding up the hill out of the saddle for the sheer pleasure of it! Reaching the top, I inform her that necessity rather than glory has seen me standing, at which her opinion of me plummets another fathom or so. Recalling her evil decision of the previous day to send me up a near-vertical hill on a ride to some crappy lake, plus the fact that she now thinks me lower than a snake's belly, I quickly glance around to see if we have any company and do a quick mental calculation around the mechanics of disposing of a body in the surrounding forest. But no - she is far too cute: mind you, it was a close call!
Alisa, safe in her ignorance, and I continue toward our destination and a short while further along, we rejoin Jabe and Julie who are waiting. For what? - who knows! Still, I enquire about the use of Jabe's pump, and it ends well with me conning Jabe into pumping my tire up himself. That's what comes of beating ppl up hills Mr!
Approaching Deer Lodge, he again beats me up the 4km rather nasty little hill that leads us to our final destination for the next two days. Julie (she can motor) and Jacob(! - yes he can ride) follow soon after and we settle down outside the lodge in the eating area to have a few beers (which reminds me - I still owe Jabe and Julie for my drinks!)
With ppl from the group sporadically appearing at the Lodge, Jabe, Julie and I cycle the (maybe) 800 meters up to the lake itself and have a wander. The lake, whilst lovely, has a very manicured look to it, no doubt to appeal to the many international tourists who visit it and stay in the charmingly named Lake Louise Chateaux, a sensitively designed little abode right next to the lake. Its dimensions are well in keeping with the surrounding environs: it's as tall and huge as the mountains that surround the lake! (evidence below):
I mean, it stands out like the proverbial dog's balls and is shit-ugly to boot. Sorry, but way to rape the place for fiscal gain! Fittingly, it also rapes its guests - $7 for a can of Red Bull? Pffttt - keep the frickin' drink!
Here's the manicured lake, complete with boathouse which will shortly feature in the recounting of the Polar Bear Club Lake Louise Escapade:
Trailing back down to Deer Lodge, our shockingly misnamed (I didn't see one!) but much nicer accommodation, we wander into the rear carpark and catch up with the vans and others. At this time, I get to replacing my rear tube - it's still pretty full, but I'm taking no chances. Whilst doing so, I notice more evidence as to why Deer Lodge is poorly named - it's crawling with squirrels! So crawling in fact that one of the cute little suckers finds an open peanut butter jar left on the fender of our trailer. Here's the little critter, bold as brass, actually diving headfirst into the jar!
Brandon finally managed to scare it off, but only after he escalated the stand off with the threat of deploying thermo-nuclear weapons.
Off to our rooms, and mine and Jacob's is great. Deer Lodge itself is an excellent place, with a nice somewhat twisty layout, various rooms for meetings, little nooks for privacy, plus an interesting lounge area complete with an enormous bison head mounted over a gas log fire! The restaurant is also very nice, and that's where we retired for the lovely evening meal.
It was at this meal that the suggestion of Polar Bearing in Lake Louise raised its head, courtesy of guide Doug, the head honcho of all things Polar Bear. Up until this time I had, apart from the daytime dip at Lake McDonald, not Polared: only really because it hadn't occurred to me again. Well now it did. A few drinks helped to sweeten the idea.
Let me briefly describe Lake Louise: it is a high altitude mountain lake - fed by Glaciers - Glaciers are vast piles of ice (frozen water) constructed in nature's freezer - these particular Glaciers reside in an area called the Plain of Six Glaciers - there are therefore 6 glaciers and they are very real and very large - this Plain resides in an area about a long stone's throw from Lake Louise - this Plain drains the barely thawed ice water coming off the glaciers into Lake Louise. You get the point.
So, Doug and I (myself unsure quite how or why) set off from the warmth, harmony and lights of Deer Lodge into the dark of night and up to Lake Louise. We are accompanied by 'observers' Mark, Stuart and Alisa. Why we need three observers is beyond me - I suspect it is humans turning into meat icebergs they come to witness. I am dressed in my shorts style bathers, warm jacket, hiking boots with no socks and carry a Lodge towel - haha, I want to dry off after! Doug has more clothes, the bastard!
We arrive at the Lake and make our way around the boardwalk to the boatshed in the previous pic. We had decided to go from here as the Lake edge is neatly manicured with rocks, and Doug and I figured wading into this turquoise coloured slushy was not on - no body attached to a sane or insane mind would advance any further into water which froze the toe that first slid into it! The shed had a dock from which we could dive.
Reaching the boatshed, we find our way locked by a gate. At this time, my brain was clearly not functioning correctly as I immediately started to see if I could open this gate! Being unable to, Doug and I again debated the wisdom of wading in - not a chance! With encouragement and various solutions offered by the others, I decided to climb over the gate and did so, as did Doug. In the interim, I think the others found a way to get around the back of the shed and onto the dock - either way we all ended up on the dock itself.
The next portion of the tale I relate in complete fact - Doug will disagree but I was there and I know!
The dock was nice and low over the water so a clean entry looked good. I had already planned to dive shallow as I wasn't sure what was out there; well, apart from icebergs. The scene was somewhat surrealistic as the dock had this weird light which very slowly pulsed in and out of operation - in a cycle of about 2 minutes it went from dimly lit to off and back again. Perhaps they were trying to emulate the atmosphere which possibly existed around the time the Titanic struck the iceberg? Our false bravado was still with us - we disrobed to bathers, he wearing budgie smugglers (google it if you are blank) and I my more modest short style bathers, and struck various he-man poses whilst Stuart shot the evidence. Stuart also recorded Doug doing some weird nipple-massaging/twisting (I did not ask!)
At this point, Doug seemed to become obsessed about diving in when the light was on: because we hadn't yet fully comprehended the cycle of this light, it seemed at one stage all the lights had gone out on both the boatshed and Doug's courage. But sure enough, said light slowly pulsed back to dimness and we were ready. Or well, at least I was - I proposed "on the count of three". For some reason Doug, head honcho of the Polar Bear Club, King of Crispy Cold, Icon of the Icebergs, Founder of Freezing Inc., standing on this slightly chilly dock, near naked, within quivering distance of frigid water, wanted to count down - FROM TWENTY!
ARE YOU SHITTING ME???
Man, I was outta there - counting to three I ran and dived, followed closely (to his credit) by Doug. There is an old Bill Cosby skit about a guy going for a similar dive in a similar lake: a phrase from it springs to mind. "And my eyes did not close, for they too wanted to know what had hit them".
It was cold, cold-of-death, freezer-in-morgue cold. And yet as we (immediately) swam back to the side of the dock, I felt alright, so alright that I pulled myself up on the dock, backed back, and plunged in again. Doug followed. This time the skin on my forearms immediately disappeared, or at least the lack of feeling from that area indicated as much. With several teeth dropping from my skull I realised that maybe enough was enough!
After toweling off and dressing in what little I had (the bathers remained frozen on my lower torso) the air felt surprisingly warm and we all sauntered off to visit the 'Chateaux', Stuart taking delight in continually pointing out the pic of Doug's weird nipple thing (I still didn't ask). Surprisingly, we gained access (me looking like I imagined some strange large Japanese guy who'd just taken part in a bizarre Japanese TV torture show would) and tottered around checking out 'Le Chat' and its shops and well-heeled denizens.
So that was it - still alive, I and the others made our way back to Deer Lodge, Doug and I surely having accomplished the most 'Polarish' of swims know to the tour.
Tomorrow, Day 5, and I wake up looking a day younger than I am thanks to a frozen body; a layover day sees us hiking to the Plain of Six Glaciers for a closer look; we check out a Teahouse hidden in the woods; Bonnie, David and I achieve immortality thanks to an Inukshuk; Jacob and I discover Lake Louise township is the mecca for Surfer and Goth culture, and walk/crawl up a 4km hill imitating surfer-ese and laughing insanely at the prospect of a bear mauling; and I get to within a molecule of blowing up and beating an unco-operative phone to death!
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