Axel woke up at 5:20 and had his first nap at 7:30. Gravel ride into Castlegar along Lower Arrow Lake was beautiful, then paved and road riding… The afternoon highway riding was a hot slog. Ended the day with a lucky available campsite at a beauty prov park on the Columbia River.
More 🚲!: New records! Earliest wake up (5:14) and earliest nap (7:25). It was neat to travel over the steel and trestle bridges after reading the history of this area of the trail in the shelter the night before. The planning and engineering and human power to do it is just so impressive. It was a short ride till we hit access to Lower Arrow Lake – Axel was asleep and Ryley said it was too early so it was a swim for 1! And it was GLORIOUS. Shortly after we left the rail trail and hit pavement, and we crossed (gasp!) our very first set of train tracks! We cruised into Castlegar and stopped at a coffee shop, went to another bakery for additional baked goods that seemed somewhat healthy for Axel, resupplied and repacked, then biked onwards to the bike shop where we finally got Ryley’s axle loosened, stopped at a cafe for lunch and hung out in the aircon for too long cause it was SO HOT OUT, meandered to Canadian Tire for fuel then realized we were heading onto our first realy hwy section of riding in mid-30s heat at 2pm… ugh. Everyone felt the heat, including Axel. We stopped at a rest stop off the highway for a much needed break and shade before going onwards to Trail, grabbed a couple single beers at the liquor store and headed to Beaver Creek Prov Park to try our luck at an available campsite. We did get lucky – they had 3 available spots, and one right on the river which really felt like it saved this hot, hot day! We swam, drank beer, ate chips (crackers in Axel’s case) and hung out in the shade. And swam again.
Distance: 69.25 km, Elevation Gain: 467 m, Moving Time:5h 3m