Mile eaters on the Cassiar

Its amazing what good company can do. Tom was off really early, with Curtis not too far behind, and Isobel still soundly asleep. I got all packed up before Isobel was up, but not by much. A relaxed coffee and a chat to workers and mates at home meant Isobel had a bit of a head start on me. After catching her we had a good chat. She'd been out for 2 months, most recently coming from Inuvik. An hour later and we'd also caught Curtis, who'd mentioned that we'd already passed Tom.

Tom passed whilst we were having a nature break, so it was just the 3 of us who came across another bear, who payed no attention. The tailwind was awesome. At the start of the day I'd noticed that there was a free camp about 170km away.



After reaching the Cassiar junction before 2pm this became a real possibility. Unfortunately Curtis was not feeling as fresh, so it was just myself and Isobel rolling the last few hours together. The Cassiar was such a breath of fresh air. As soon as we turned onto it everything changed, lane markings disappeared, as did the traffic, but the biggest thing was the road become a lot narrower with trees coming right up to the road. Fireweed had taken over.

Had my best encounter with a bear. Isobel says I was using her as a human shield, but I was doing the gentlemanly thing and riding on the traffic side. Because the foliage came right up to the road, Isobel only saw the bear when it was within a metre of her, and I only noticed after she screamed.

At camp we found a French cyclist, northbound, although it didn't seem like he was interested in a chat. Later a South African couple who'd been living in Vancouver for ages drove in. They'd toured, and he'd raced the Tour Divide, so we had a great night, including another free beer!

At 9pm Tom turned up, and he had a large packet of smoked salmon, which was delicious. We've come to realize that if we want more food we should start looking more like bums.



After our massive day, an easy day was due, but it was not today. Its actually surprising how fun it was despite how tough it was, although I guess thats mostly because the terrain was interesting.



Lunch and a coffee at Jade City kept me going. After lunch we had a lot of fun slowly losing all the altitude. Camp was down a nice steep path, which would make a nice warmup. We find it hard to say no to free food, so even though we were only just starting our own dinner we accepted a 2nd dinner.  Once again Tom turned up at 9pm.

I had a particularly lazy morning, so me and Tom rolled out 45 mins after Isobel, although Tom stopped immediately to fix his gear. 45 minutes of an extremely fun TT mode chase got me up to Isobel, although I was definitely feeling the effort.

At Dease Lake (not on the lake) was the first of many extremely long lunch breaks myself and Isobel would take. Its not very hard once you start chatting to various people. Olly, a German cyclist was also heading south, but he was taking a rest day. As we were leaving Tom turned up, as did Curtis.

The only thing better than a mountain pass is doing it with a full load of full. It wasn't so bad actually, generally remaining at reasonable gradients. Isobel had a good laugh at me struggling to get my bike back up the bank. Sustained climbing is always worth it, for the views, and the inevitable descent. One last climb and we were rolling into camp.

It was approaching 10pm, and we were sure that today would be the day that Tom would fall short, but at 10pm he skidded into camp, smiling. Trying out an MRE was an amusing process, we needed a 2nd though, to use the techniques  we learnt.

Early in the day I met Lorrie and Gary, who'd somehow missed Isobel. They were on their way up to the Dempster. After a few hours of cycling alone It was very relieving to finally make the catch. Soon enough we stopped for brunch.

Serving size has always been something I look for, and when our pancakes came out we new we were in for a challenge. over an hour later we were still eating when Tom turned up. Another hour or so and we were just starting to get going. We'd already decided to shorten the day.

Up to this point I'd actually never ridden with Tom, so whilst I knew he had great endurance it was good to see that he had great speed as well. The three of us had a great time riding together, although we did get a little silly, probably due to the amount of sugar we'd consumed.

The spot I'd picked was great. That was until 10pm when the truck traffic started. As we'd camped next to a metal grid it was extremely loud. It did die off though.



After our short day we were due an epic, and epic it was. The terrain was amazing. really steep hills on either side, and roads following the river.



I hope the above photo is silly enough for what the sign shows (note I believe its actually showing at least 100m short, but that still doesn't make it any less silly). After our amazing scenery it was a bit of letdown reaching Bell II and seeing that the amazing scenery had ended.



This was yet another of our long lunch breaks, mainly as we met Paul, and English cyclist. Paul had been cycling around various parts of the world. Tom caught us once again.

Most people would arrive at a nice spot to camp after 140km and call it a day. Not us. We decided to push on another 30km. This was both good and bad. The ride was great, but the end of the day left a sour taste in our mouth.

Partway into it the ride we met Louis, A Spanish cyclist. We arrived in Meziadin Junction, and heard about some wind turbine parts that were coming through, so of course we hung around and took a look.

Up to this point on the Cassiar we had free camped the entire time, in some amazing spots. Mostly they were even official campgrounds as well. Because it was late our willpower was gone so we went to the provincial park. Paying for a sterilized  car park amongst RV's was a really bad way to end an otherwise spectacular ride. The flies were also shocking.

Breakfast was the last time our trio was together, with myself and Isobel saying goodbye to Tom. Whilst chatting over the last few days we'd found out that myself and Tom had been in Dawson at the same time, and left in opposite directions on the same day, and Isobel had got into town the same afternoon. We've already had thoughts about catching up, possibly on the Icefields parkway. This was made possible as I've been convinced to come to Vancouver Island.



We took a side trip to Bear Glacier, a big hunk of rapidly melting old ice. The ride was meant to be all downhill, but was actually mostly uphill... Not a bad thing, just unexpected.



The weather was looking rather ominous. Dark clouds around, but still patches of clear sky. At one stage we thought we'd actually miss it completely, but as we approached camp the heavens opened. We were at camp within a couple of minutes and a few pine trees gave almost perfect cover, with only the very occasional drop making its way through. For once I nabbed the best spot, under the trees.

We'd been chatting about where Curtis was that night, coming to the conclusion he was likely a day behind, when in he comes after a 160km day! I'm astounded by finding 4 people all at once who are all reasonably similar endurance and wanting to do the same sort of days.

The mozzies were shocking, luckily they were outside the tent, at least in the beginning, but I went to sleep to the constant buzz. I was woken to the sound of a pot falling, and then a bear banger going off. For those who don't know a bear banger is a firecracker, designed to scare bears off. and they're loud!

Curtis was a very nervous camper it seems. I had a look around, as I was the only one with a light, but there was nothing, likely just a squirrel, or the wind. In the process of looking I let in dozens of mozzies. This necessitated a culling of the population, which is a rather messy job, with blood still on my tent.

Over night it had rained, as I was under a tree my tent was perfectly dry. The others weren't so lucky. Curtis was off first, we caught him in Kitwanga and said our final goodbyes. Whilst there Jason, Canada, rolled in. He was doing the reverse route as Isobel.



I'd seen that there was a camp 1km up a trail from a road, so we aimed for that. We got to the trail, and should have given up when we saw that it had a gain of over 150m in that 1km, but we didn't. Very quickly we gave up though, and just had a look up the top. It would have been a great spot, but we weren't up for a return trip so we just took our bikes down and setup at the trailhead. We did make our way up to a nice lookout and had dinner.

As for the title, we took 7 days to do the Cassiar, plus a bit. That was over 900km in those 7 days.