Great Divide Trail 2017

We rode on blacktop, old logging roads, transmission line access roads and single track over mountain passes.

These massive trucks were used to haul overburden from underlying coal seams.  This one is on display in Sparwood BC.

This man rode alongside us on his ATV.  He took us back to his place for melons and iced-tea.  We met many generous souls in Montana.

The atmosphere was hazy. There were many fires burning north and east of us in British Columbia. From the US border the US Forest Service rerouted us over a steep pass and down to Upper Whitefish Lake. Its the hardest this old bod has worked for quite some time!

The railways across BC are amazing. They pass over and through major mountain ranges.

There long train ply between Sparwood and the Roberts Bank coal terminal just south of Vancouver. The coal is shipped off to Asia.

We did an overnight trip from Fernie BC back to our car in Canmore, Alberta. 

Wild life was everywhere.  We three grizzlies at long range.  A woman bounded out of the entrance of a primitive camp site yelling out that there was a bear in the campsite.  We rode on briskly.

Elkford BC.  In the heart of the Tech coal mining operation.  I worked on the Line Creek access after graduation from in 1980.

We got as far south as Bigfork, Montana.  Smoke was thick.  We rode back to Whitefish before driving back to Vancouver. 

A few weeks later on the Kettle Valley Railway the fall colours were much more pronounced.

We drove west through the Similkameen Valley.  The fall harvest was well underway.  We always stop at Sandersons for a vegetable samosa and fresh produce. 

The East Indian community keeps market gardening alive.  Otherwise the whole valley covered in grapevines.

As one old-timer lamented,  “You can’t eat grapes!”