July 16

Wonderful day, eh?  Warm, not a cloud in the sky.  I backtracked through Revelstoke National Park and part of Glacier.  I was looking for the road to Meadow in the Sky and I couldn't remember where I'd seen it.  After about 40 or so miles of backtrack, I turned around.  Just as I was about to enter the town of Revelstoke, there was the turnoff.  So I went about 14 miles up Mt. Revelstoke on this neat little road with "Watch for Amphibians" signs on it.  Seems as though the lower reaches of the forest comprise what I've seen billed as the world's only inland temperate rain forest.  Don't quite know what that entails.  I suspect very finicky definitions.  This was not today's only great sign.  I saw a warning sign for mountain goats to add to the elk, deer, moose, big horn sheep and bears.  Say, if these guys all mix together could this be the reason for the rural crime watch areas?

Anyway, after dancing along my backtrack route, I danced up this wonderful little road to the top of Mt Revelstoke where the were horse and deer flies in abundance, I might add.  Here are some of the promised pictures.

The old fire lookout at the very tippymost top of Mt. Revelstoke.

Snow just below the tippriest topmost point.

The valley below the mountain wherein lies the town.

And for good measure.

Ate a good lunch after the flower- filled meadows in the sky and headed south.  Got to get ready to head back south of the border, as the Canadians say.  Came to a screeching halt when the road stopped at a reservoir.  Seems a huge hydro project flooded a long stretch of valley some decades ago.  Now you have to take a ferry across.  So I waited for the ferry and struck up a conversation with a young Canadian motorcyclist from Revelstoke who was just out for the day.  We pointed me toward the town of Nelson which is where I am now.  After we got on the ferry, we struck up a conversation with a third bike guy.  Talked biking and skiing and roads all the way across.  The dam forming this reservoir is across the Columbia, by the way.

We were the first ones off the ferry and these guys just blasted so I figured I could turn it up a notch myself.  Had a wonderfully exhilarating ride full of ups and downs and twisties for maybe 100 miles.  The Canadian guys said that people come from all over to bike through southern B.C.  And I didn't even take the road they suggested.  My twisties to Nelson were on a more direct route.

An outstanding day.  I have no idea how many miles I did.  Finished off the last few handfuls of Pat's nuts and berries, feeling, for the last time this trip, as one with the Great Bear.  Moscow, Idaho tomorrow.