Five people drove up and over from Minneapolis in one car, and two of us flew- but all seven bikes went on the car- four on a roof-rack, three on a rear-bumper rack. Dave S. and I, the fliers, were to meet those who drove in Calgary. We waited for several hours past the appointed time for them to show up, then took a bus downtown to the YMCA and stayed there, not knowing where we were SUPPOSED to stay.
The next day we met them back where we were supposed to MEET. They had arrived, the four bikes on the roof of the Mazda and three on the back had been unloaded and were sitting along a fence. I looked for my bike. Where is it? The closest match is this bike with embossed handlebars. That's it! What happened? It has a new derailleur as well as a couple of small dents in the frame. Turns out the roof rack came off somewhere in Montana, and took the bumper rack off with it, at 65 mph, and bounced on the highway behind the car.
Good thing there was a 24 hour emergency bike repair shop in Missoula (the headquarters of Bikecentennial), and we had an emergency fund adequate to cover the repairs.
The first leg of our trip was from Calgary to Banff, about 90 miles across the foothills. All day long we could see the Rockies on the horizon, gradually growing.
The Rockies were so beautiful...
Medicine Lake, Jasper National Park, photo by Dave Stewart, 1976 ©
It looses its water almost completely during summer and
autumn. But where does the water go? It is drained by
an underground river system. Because this seemed to be
mysterious, the First Nation People called the lake
Medicine Lake.
the Youth Hostels are about 30 miles apart through the parks, so it was a fairly easy, laid-back trip,
despite a few seven mile climbs through passes, 50 mph descents (catching up to cars, with the frame starting to shake from imperfectly distributed packs, foolish youth that I was.) I saw bears, elk and mountain sheep by the road,
Whistling marmot, camoflaged (center of pic) above Lake Louise
The Mountain sheep come down from high in the mountains to salt licks to replenish minerals they lose when they shed, overcoming their natural shyness. One of these sheep has its head stuck in a hole, butt in the air, licking deposits:
