Their maps are made for cyclists, and give nice details like where you can find food & water & campgrounds in sparsely populated areas.
I used the northern portion of the Great Parks route, with a slight variation in the starting point. When I looked at the mileage from Missoula, MT to Jasper, Alberta and compared it with the time I had available, I realized I wanted to join the Great Parks route in Missoula but that I wanted an additional week of riding. I'd never been to Idaho, so I decided that would be a good starting point.
Although I thought that I would love solo touring, I was a little nervous about the great unknown. So I decided to join up with a Backroads commercial tour from Banff to Jasper. That gave me a bit of a security blanket, because I knew that if I was unhappy with solo touring that I'd have at least a week that I'd enjoy. By the time I joined the tour I really didn't need the support, but I will admit it was nice to ride an unloaded bike for a change and have someone else cook for me. I was right about loving solo touring though...
Where did I go?
- Idaho
- from Lewiston, across Route 12, over Lolo Pass into Montana
- Montana
- from Idaho border to Missoula
- to Glacier National Park
- to the Canadian Border
- Alberta
- to Waterton Lakes National Park
- North (and west) across Crow's Nest Pass into British Columbia
- British Columbia
- North along the spine of the Rockies to Radium
- East - back across the continental divide at Vermillion Pass
- Alberta
- South to Banff
- A side trip to Kananaskas Country
- Back to Banff
- North to Jasper
Idaho
When I was looking for a starting point for my adventure, a colleague mentioned Route 12 in Idaho - the Nez Perce and Lewis & Clark Trails. He put me in touch with a friend who lives in eastern Washington, who confirmed that Route 12 is a beautiful road. He also told me he didn't think I should bike on it, since it is narrow with no shoulders, and has a lot of logging truck traffic. I knew that he wasn't a biker, so I chose to ignore his negative advice. Plus - I ride on narrow roads without shoulders all of the time. Sometimes I think that is the only kind of road that exists in New England.
Funny that I was so right about ignoring the negative advice of a driver about Route 12, but I later fell for it when someone told me a road was flat and it turned out to be all uphill!)
Route 12 goes from Lewiston on the western edge of Idaho to the top of Lolo Pass in the east. It follows the Clearwater and Lochsa Rivers. At the start it is relatively flat, then begins a long gradual rise to the top of the pass (about 60-70 miles of uphill), with a relatively short steep section at the end. What a beautiful place
Montana
I rode across Lolo Pass into Montana, then headed for Missoula. From Missoula I followed the Adventure Cycling Great Parks route, which led me to Glacier National Park and then north to the Chief Mountain border crossing into Canada. I covered only a small corner of Montana, but what I saw was beautiful. And of course it helped that part of it was Glacier - one of my favorite national parks. This was my second trip to Glacier, and I'm sure that it won't be the last!
Alberta & British Columbia
I continued to follow the Adventure Cycling Greak Parks route for most of my stay in Alberta and British Columbia. I did take a side trip to Kananaskis Country which is a conglomeration of parks to the south and east of Banff. The parks that most people know about are Banff and Jasper - both in Alberta. But my trip also touched on 2 parks on British Columbia that are separated from Banff & Jasper by the continental divide - Kootenay and Yoho. All four of these national parks are beautiful. (In fact, I returned to these 4 parks in the fall of 2000 for a hiking trip, and I'm sure I'll go back there again some day.)
Travel
How did I get to the start and finish? I live outside of Boston - the sea level gal heading to some serious elevations for a month - so I flew from Boston to Lewiston, Idaho to start my trip. I finished biking in Jasper, Alberta - no airport there. So I took the train from Jasper to Edmonton, and flew back to Boston from Edmonton.
I found out something interesting about air fares when researching this trip. I knew about there being a big break in price if you stay over one Saturday night. What I didn't know is that the fare goes up considerably if you stay more than 30 days. By flying on July 15th and August 13th, I was on the outside edge of the good air fare range. A second interesting but helpful fact is that the airline considered my route a round-trip (usually much cheaper than 2 one-way tickets) - even though I flew into one city in the United States and flew out of another city in Canada. I guess they considered Idaho and Alberta to be in the same region, and I was starting and ending in a single city.
