The start of Hwy 3

Crowsnest Pass (AB) to Crawford Bay (BC)

We arrived in Blairmore AB and promptly followed the signs to the Blairmore Bike Park. They had a really cool little skills park and good access to the local trails. Darcy, Kristy and Felix showed up shortly after we got there, so after playing in the skills park Darcy took us for a tour up the bike trails to give us a little sampling of what the area had to offer. The trails are pretty sweet and it’s obvious that the local bike club UROC (United Riders of Crowsnest) have put in a lot of work to make the trails great!

Darcy and Kristy were gracious enough to let us stay in their driveway. They did offer their spare bedroom but we are finding the van pretty comfortable and generally easier with the dogs. Darcy took me up for an evening ride after dinner. We are definitely not acclimatized to the thin mountain air. I’m sure that not being in great mountain bike shape yet had nothing to do with our wheezing and coughing up the steep bike trails. But what goes up must come down, and boy are those trails fun!! We came down the School of Rock and Whistling Post trails which are about 3km long and nearly 300m of descent full or berms and jumps. If it wasn’t for the climb up I could do this all day! My 6 year old, 100mm of travel XC bike is a little undergunned in this terrain. Maybe time for an upgrade… :)

We spent the next couple of days around the Blairmore and Coleman area. I would hike and bike with Kim, and then go for a ride with Darcy where he would push my limits and scare me a little bit, which is good - I like coming up to the edge of my abilities sometimes. Kim and I also hiked part way up Turtle Mountain, which is the backside of Frank Slide, the big landslide that partially buried the town of Frank in 1903. Strong gusts of wind and weak lungs kept us from making it to the top, but we are only 2 weeks into our trip so we’ll get fitter as the weeks pass since we are hiking and biking pretty much everyday.

From there we spent a few days in Fernie and a few in Kimberley. Pretty much just biked and hiked. I think I’ve ridden over 70km of trails and hiked about 30km in the past week. Kimberley is a great town! We stumbled across a zero waste store where you could fill up your own containers with everything from cooking oils, soaps, peanut butter, spices, etc. We loved it! If we live there we’d definitely be shopping there lots. We filled up with what we could and checked out the Centrex gas station owned by the same person. Not your average gas station! Pretty much an organic/health food market with juice bar. Once again we filled our cupboards with great food and local produce.

From Kimberley we made our was west and drove up the east shore of Kootenay Lake towards the town of Crawford Bay. It’s a cute little place with lots of artists and artisanal workshops. One of the coolest places was a broom shop where they make really cool brooms. Everything from little whisks to Harry Potters recreations to brooms so pretty you could hang it on your wall. Who knew that broom making could be an art! We had a really hard time not buying a broom but when you live in a van, and you have just downsized your life we have become pretty selective in what we buy.