Reaching the Pacific

     I was now on the final stretch on my journey of crossing Canada. What seemed so far away and at times what seemed impossible was now in reach. Making it to the Pacific Ocean and being able to say that I've crossed the entire country, from Atlantic to Pacific, was so close now. I only had about half of BC to go yet and the closer I got, the more and more I thought about how close I was and how I wanted to make it to the ocean. Eventually as I neared the end of my crossing, my thoughts would be dominated about how badly I wanted to finish, but before all that, I was still near Grand Forks on the Trans-Canada Trail.

I awoke to a nice view of the valley below me, with mist sitting over the river. I've always liked to take my time in the morning and move at my own pace, so Rochelle was much faster than me and ended up leaving about an hour before I did. I was starting to learn from looking at my map, where the best spots for camping would likely be along the trail and had pointed out to Rochelle where I though I might stop for the night before she left.

Early morning mist over the valley

The trail started the day the same way it had been for the past couple days, but would soon change as I neared Midway and the start of the Kettle Valley rail trail (KVR). It was no longer isolated away from everything but instead going through villages, farms and other places. This lead to the trail constantly changing but still being beautiful the whole stretch. Along the way were more tunnels, forest, singletrack, farm fields, orchards, mountains and lots of gates that you had to stop to open and close. Once I officially reached the start of the section considered the KVR, I started to see more cyclists along the trail as this is a trail that a lot of people go to ride. I met a couple of sisters (I can't remember their names) that I rode with for a little while and would run into again later in the day.

I would end up reaching the spot I thought would be good for camping, which it was, and ended up stopping there for the day. It was raised up a ways above the Kettle River with a picnic table but I was able to get down to the river from there to swim, wash up and do some laundry. I was somewhat surprised that Rochelle wasn't there and I guessed she must've gone further ahead as I hadn't passed her along the way. However a few minutes after I got there, I noticed some smoke coming from just ahead along the river. I went to check it out and down on a little beach, right below my raised section where I had stopped, was Rochelle with a campfire going. Somehow we had ended up in the same spot now 3 nights in a row.

This was one of those really nice spots that I was in no rush to leave, so I took my time in the morning and like the previous couple days, Rochelle was on the road a good while before me with no idea if we'd run into each other again or not. There wasn't much to see as the trail was nothing but forest all day. There was construction along the trail at one point though. The detour around it reminded me a lot of the Gray Creek pass (but much shorter obviously), so I wasn't exactly the happiest riding that after taking on Gray Creek a few days before. I found a good spot along the trail to camp for the night but there was a campground a bit further ahead, so I decided to check it out to see if I could get water there. To my surprise, at the campground was Rochelle who I had run into now for the 4th night in a row. We talked and made supper before I went back to the spot I had found a little earlier.

KVR

It was nice to be able to run into and talk with the same person a few days in a row, but this would almost certainly be the last time we'd run into each other, as Rochelle was gonna keep going on the trail, while I planned to explore Kelowna. I was on the bike early and before riding down into Kelowna, I went a bit further on the trail so I could see Myra Canyon. Myra Canyon was really nice with all of its trussell bridges and the view of Kelowna down below past the canyon. It was a little unfortunate though how it was plugged full of tourists. After getting around the canyon, I doubled back around the canyon to get to the FSR that would go down into Kelowna. On the way back, I ran into Rochelle one final time as for the first time, I was the first one on the bike in the morning.

Myra Canyon over Kelowna

Myra Canyon trussell bridge

Myra Canyon

Once I made it down the FSR, I was greeted with lots of orchards along the edges of Kelowna. I was now in the Okanagan Valley and getting a little look into why it's so renowned for its produce. Kelowna might've been the greenest city I've ever seen (I really haven't seen that many cities though), as it almost seemed like the orchards were trying to bleed into the city. There was a nice bike path near Lake Okanagan too that lead to the bridge that crossed the lake. I took advantage of all the produce stands along the edge of the city and stocked up on some fresh fruit before leaving.

Orchard in Kelowna

The next day I got to ride along Lake Okanagan as I headed south from Kelowna. The ride was along the edge of the highway there, which is advertised as a bike route, but I really didn't feel overly comfortable riding there. It did provide amazing views out over the lake and the hills that towered over it though. I was able to get off of the highway and back to a quieter route after Summerland though. Leaving Summerland I got to ride through plenty more orchards and vineyards before leaving civilization behind again. There's a road that goes from Summerland to Princeton which I would've thought would have a good amount of traffic on it, but it turned out to rarely have any vehicles going along it. The trail went along the same route but was sandy and hard (at times impossible on my heavy bike) to ride, so I ended up mostly staying on the nice empty dirt road instead. I would get back onto the trail later to find a camping spot and ended up finding a great spot with a little shelter that local snowmobilers had built. It was such a quiet and peaceful night there and it was one of the rare nights I was able to sleep without the outer layer of my tent making it even nicer and peaceful.

Lake Okanagan

Outside of Summerland

In the morning I noticed there were berry bushes where I camped, so I ended up getting some thimbleberries and saskatoons with my breakfast. It was another quiet ride on the road until I made it to Princeton. This would be as far as I would go along the trail. A few years ago floods had washed out the trail beyond Princeton and the trail bridge leaving the town had half of it missing due to being destroyed from the floods. I would go to that bridge though to camp for the night along the bank of the now very low river. It was another hot BC day but I had the shallow river I could lay down in to cool myself down, making it not so bad.

Camping in Princeton

From here on I'd be back on highways all the way to the coast. Being back on the faster highways and with how close I was starting to get to the Pacific, almost all I was starting to think about was how badly I wanted to make it the Pacific and officially finish crossing Canada. It helped that after riding the trails for a while now, I was looking forward to riding paved road again and being able to grind out some longer distance riding. This would sadly be my last day of getting to ride over mountains though, as once I made it to Hope I'd be in the Fraser Valley. The mountains didn't disappoint as I got to ride 2 mountain passes along a long stretch that was almost entirely uninhabited. They provided some more great views that I had gotten accustomed to at this point, being able to see out over long distances and also provide great views of the other surrounding mountains. The best part of all about the passes though, is the downhill after the long climb up and the long descent down to Hope and the Fraser Valley didn't disappoint. In Hope I had a nice chat with a local and his kids before finding a nice camping spot along the river in town.

Hope rockslide

After a couple weeks of avoiding it, I was now back on the Trans-Canada and with me starting to reach the cities that surround Vancouver, it was getting a lot busier. Making it worse was yet another very hot day probably in the mid 30's, plus one of my saddle sores decided it wanted to be very sore this day. On the positive side though, the road was now flat making for easy riding and while I wasn't riding over mountains anymore, they still surrounded in every direction with snowy ones returning as well. I found a couple of nice parks to stop in along the way including the one at Bridal Falls which was sort of like a rainforest. Whenever I wasn't focused on how bad my sore hurt, my time was spent thinking about all that I had done so far and just how far I'd come after the struggle that the beginning of the trip was. I'd make it through Chilliwack and Abbotsford before stopping in Aldergrove where I had a bit of a hard time finding somewhere to setup my tent for the night.

Bridal Falls Park

This was it now. I only had about 60-70km to go yet to reach Iona Beach which is where I picked that I was going to see and touch the Pacific for the first time. I was up early as I wanted to get going and also so I could try to get ahead of the heat too. Being in city now and no longer being on the Trans-Canada meant navigating was much harder now, as I frequently had to stop to figure out where I was going. Figuring out how to get on and across the bridges along the way wasn't super easy either, but Vancouver area had some routes and signage that did help make things a bit easier at times. I stopped for a break about halfway there after crossing one of the bridges. While there, another cyclist saw me and stopped to chat. This was Peter who had done a few shorter trips like going to Portland. He congratulated me on crossing Canada but I still hadn't crossed yet, I still had a bit further to go until I could say I'd officially done it.

The final stretch now would be almost all along the Fraser River. A lot of it was on a nice road with very little traffic. It didn’t even seem like I was in a city but rather could have been riding along a river in a rural area in Quebec. There were lots of nice views too, but no matter how nice it all was, all my mind could think about anymore was just how close I was now to crossing Canada. I’d cross one more bridge and make it onto the island with the airport and the beach that would mark my crossing. The wind had been against me all day, but this final stretch along the airport out in the open had noticeably stronger headwinds that I could see slowing down all the other cyclists going in the same direction as me. I’d hated and been fighting the wind the whole way across Canada, so it was only appropriate it would try to fight one final time. It couldn’t defeat me though, as this time I rejoiced that it blew against me because it felt like I had won the long war that we had been fighting.

I had overcome the struggles of my inexperience, the weather and conditions of the first week in Nova Scotia. After resting my bad knee, I had restarted and rode along the coast of New Brunswick. In Quebec things started to turn around in the great biking province, as I had started to enjoy the trip. I got to see a lot of friends in Ontario and made a new one that I got to ride with for a little while too. I crossed the Great Lakes in the seemingly never ending wilderness of Northern Ontario. I got to experience the flatness, endless fields and great generosity of the people of the prairies. I saw and rode among the greatest marvel of Canada in the Rocky Mountains, where I met lots of people including a couple I hope will be life long friends. I saw more mountains and had amazing camping along the trails of British Columbia. And now as I made it past the airport, I was seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time.

Iona Beach

Shortly after passing the airport, I would make it to Iona Beach. The tide was out and it appeared the beach was very shallow as the edge of the water was nowhere nearby. The beach was a long strip that separated the ocean from the Fraser River, so I decided to ride out farther to see if I could reach the water. This would be in vein though, as I soon realized that it appeared that the edge of the water may have been a couple kilometers away. There were still some pools of water that were out a little ways that still count as Pacific Ocean water. This wasn’t quite how I had envisioned reaching the Pacific would go, but it really didn’t matter. I walked out and stood in a pool and started celebrating. I had done it, I had biked across the entire length of Canada!

Reached the Pacific!

Distance Biked: 701.6km

Total Distance Biked: 8751.8km