June 26, 2015
Facts about Coquihalla Highway
In April 2014, Andrew (and his friend Jojo) rode up the Coquihalla Highway, but had to camp just before the summit. In the morning, they awoke to 6cm of fresh snow. It was a chilly ride down to Merritt.
Cycling Stats
Start point: Wild camp on Coquihalla River, British Columbia
End point: Wild camp in Brookmere, British Columbia
2:59 time, 32.3 trip, 10.8 km/h avg speed, 33.4 maximum speed
AltUP 400m, AltMAX 416m, AvgClimb 3%, MaxClimb 15%, AltDWN 60m, MaxDown 10%
What happened…
Andrew writes:So we woke up yesterday absolutely enthralled with our camping spot. It was such a nice day to sit by the river, reading books, and dipping our toes into the cool Coquihalla River. Oh, and we did have visitors! Someone on a dirt bike rolled into our site, did a circle and then left.
We had scouted up the path a bit yesterday so we knew what to expect this morning when we broke camp at 0900hrs. A lovely 1.5km hike-a-bike back up to the same level as the highway. This took 90 minutes, as first we ferried my bike and gear up to the road and then walked back down and got Amanda’s bike. Next, we were faced with a choice; ride the crazy-busy highway, or keep cycling on the KVR/Trans-Canada Trail which ran parallel. What the heck, we only live once, right? We signed up for adventure, right? Off we went along the KVR.
There was some walking, some pushing, some cursing..not a lot of joy-filled moments actually. After about 2km, we reached the Portia exit, and got back on the regular highway. We climbed for about 15km, passing beside the Great Bear snow shed before finally reaching the Zopkios brake check. Here there was a lovely lunch truck serving burgers and fries, just the fuel we needed! We also met some other cycle-tourists who are driving their recumbent bicycles to Jasper and then riding towards us. For the first time, in 10 years of bicycle touring, we had someone hand us refreshments out of their car-window. In this case, Richard Knowson and his crew of cyclists will surely have nothing but tailwinds for giving us two completely frozen bottles of water!
We reached the summit shortly after, and then began our long, long, descent down the Coquihalla. About 40km later, we had reached the top of Larson Hill, and decided to re-join the KVR at the Brodie Siding. We had some info passed along to us from a cyclist who had gone through last week, and it suggested that we were in for some blood, sweat and tears. The path at this point, all the way to Brookmere was hard-packed gravel, with the odd section of loose soil. There was a wash-out that we managed to sneak our bikes across. It was pretty sketchy, but the official re-route was right up the side of the mountain. Virtually impossible for us to climb! Just as we were about to reach Brookmere, two things happened: 1) Amanda saw a bear. This provided a bit of extra pep in her step which led to 2) Amanda crashed. She’s all right, Pablo, her bike is all right too.
Rolling into Brookmere (population: 8??) we asked for some water and were rewarded with beer too! We set up camp in the old school yard, cooked a delicious dinner, and called it a night pretty early. Tomorrow I think we can make it the 60km to Princeton, where we can re-stock some of our supplies.
Today’s Photographs
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