Day 3: Christina Lake – Grand Forks
in Uncategorized
Total Distance Travelled: 32KM
Total Time: 3 hours
Moving Time: 2:30
Today was the first wet day of the trip, it was drizzling when I got up at 8:30AM. The weather forecast predicted off and on rain all day. It made for a good opportunity to test out my rain jacket. I grabbed some milk, yogurt and fruit for breakfast from the local grocery store and mixed it with the muesli I brought with me. It made for a healthy and tasty breakfast.
Starting out I decided to track back to Fife Rd to get back on the trail, the same steep grade I went down at 40KM+/hr I had to get back up. I managed to ride about 1/2 – 2/3 of the way back up to the trail and ended up walking the bike for the rest of the way. There was a less steep access point to the trail further down the road, but I could see the trail from my hotel perched on the cliff and I knew there would be good views of the lake from the section of the trail.
Christina Lake
Another view of the trail and the lake
Today was a pretty short cycling day, so the wet weather didn’t interfere too badly with my plans. I only scheduled one actual rest day the whole trip, instead I put in various short cycling segments to give myself a break from being on the bike all day.
The trail descended from Christina Lake for approximately 7KM, before it bottomed out and began ascending for the next pass. The trail was perched on a cliff for most of its descent which gave great views of the valley.
View of the valley
Views of the valley
You can see the rail trail on the right hand side of the last pictures following the side of the mountain down into the valley. The trail was in fair condition today, but a portion of the trail was dug up for a natural gas pipeline. When they replaced the trail, they didn’t always replace the fills and level the grade like the railway did which made for some much more hilly sections. This is also the first time I encountered gates that needed to be opened/closed. To keep ATV’s out and cattle in, many land owners installed gates that have to be manually opened and closed. There were probably ~7 gates in the short section from Christina Lake – Grand Forks. Overall they are just an annoyance, but it can be tough to hold out to a loaded bike with one hand and open a gate with the other.
River View
In the end I arrived in Grand Forks around 1:30PM and had lots of time to relax and look around town. In town they had a Winnipeg Liquor Store (Winnipeg is written in the white triangle):
Winnipeg Liquor Store!
I had dinner in the Grand Forks station that’s been converted into a restaurant.
Grand Forks station