The Great Canadian Tour 2025 - Elbows Up Edition - Day 17

Morning came early today…earliest yet.  As you head west and cross each time zone, it is hard to catch up to one before you are flying through another.  This morning we were both awake at 5 am, trying our best to keep sleeping but knowing that it just wasn’t going to happen. Yesterday we crossed our final time zone and are now on Pacific Time!

We got up, packed our bags, loaded the bikes and then decided to wander the town.  It is now 6 am, the sun is out, the sky is blue and the streets are quiet.  This town is quiet anyway but the early morning allowed us some window shopping and an opportunity to see a lot of the buildings.  

By 6:30, we had walked a good part of the upper streets, so we decided we needed to get everyone else up earlier than we had agreed to and get on the road earlier as well.  Buddy and Brad were awake, but still in bed.  Jerry was down at the wharf.  We got everyone to meet us at the diner at 7:30 am, had a great breakfast and headed back to our hotel to finish packing and hit the road.

Leaving Nelson, we had to cross Bob….Bob is apparently the nick name the community has given the bridge that spans the West Arm.  Bob apparently stands for Big Orange Bridge….we were educated by our server the night before…the bridge is indeed orange and it is big.  A quick stop for gas and the twists and turns began.  All along the mountains edge and the river, the turns were easy and gentle.  As we moved further along they become tighter, up and down, over the mountain passes all morning.  We stopped in two towns.  

New Denver was the first of these two stops.

Two years ago we stopped here on a similar run through.  If you were to check my blog from back around that time, you would note a subject called “Fire and Ice”.  At the time, you could see snow still on some of the peaks similar to today.  There was also a small plume of smoke rising on one of the peaks.  Come to find out, we witnessed the beginning of a forest fire that completely burned out the side of the mountain as noted in the photo.  Fire is one of the risks in this area.  We are watchful and I follow some of the government sites for AQ and for fire locations.  Despite the ravaged mountain side, it is still a very beautiful area.

Our next stop was for lunch in Nacusp.  A quaint little town similar to Nelson, we stopped for a quick lunch.  Our next section was similar to the twists and turns we had been riding all morning, except now we were going to be taking a ferry at Needles.  We crossed with a most beautiful view of the lake and the valley.  I wasn’t particularly crazy about the logging truck parked next to me on the ferry (those that know, know).  Photos below kinda says it all.

The other side of the lake offered up even more twists and turns…as they say “new verse, same as the first”.  While the words may differ, the melody is the same.

Today, we covered just over 400 kms.  If I were to estimate, we had about 100 kms to Kelowna once we got to got out of the mountains.  That means we probably did close to 250 - 300 kms of twist and turns.  It was a great day.  One for the books….oh and it was hotter than Hades once we got out of the mountains and started heading for Kelowna….”new verse, same as the first”.  

I think we will use a couple of down days to recover.  We have had more than a few days on the road, and they have not been without some challenges.  A couple of days to relax will be greatly appreciated.  I will post more once we are on the road again.  For tomorrow I think the horses need a good wash.