Scenic Orgasm 2 -- Canada's Revenge

The Rogers Pass lived up to its reputation. We have a bunch of euphoric riders in camp tonight. If you were to design a bike ride you'd be hard-pressed to top today's experience. The Rogers Pass cuts through the middle of Canada's version of Glacier National Park. It's an engineering wonder in addition to being a scenic wonder.

We rode out this morning, looking at a 96 mile day and a lot of climbing. The weather reports from the previous night called for intermittent showers and a thunderstorm. At things turned out the conditions were perfect for climbing -- cool, overcast, and windless. The group seemed to be dragging this morning, but once we got riding the fatigue of the last few days seemed to fade away.

As the climb progressed up the hill the views grew ever more dramatic.I'm hard-pressed to pick only a couple to highlight the day. I noticed on my altimeter that we should be getting close to the summit, but we were miles away from the peak. We then began one of the most sublime descents of my biking life.

The canyon wall was closed in on the left side of the road, enveloped in a deep forest canopy. The river followed the right side, with magnificent glacier-capped peaks as far as the eye could see. I bombed down the descent, asphalt smooth as a pool table, at 40+ MPH. I briefly thought about slowing down and taking some pictures, but the experience was so exhilarating that I just decided to roll with it. I literally yelled out loud on 3 separate occasions, just from the pure joy of the experience. I can think of very few experiences in my life (hi sweetness!) that could match the sheer pleasure of this descent.

We then had 2000 feet to climb in a few miles to make it to the summit. The beauty of the place made the struggle a lot easier. In actuality the road probably never got to more than a 7% grade, although it went on for miles.











Towards the top we passed through a series of snow tunnels, set up to protect the road from avalanches in the wintertime.













Here's the view from very near the summit. It's not actually as cold as the picture would indicate.














And a couple more pictures from the descent.


Large cascading waterfall...



















Flowers and waterfall along the roadside...


















The river we followed...















More Mountain Views...