Canadian Rockies Day 7&8

Canadian Rockies Day 7&8

Wow! What a wild couple days! We have been fortunate to see such severe weather twice so far in this trip. This time we got the hail we missed in Bismark. Up to ¾ in, hail fell on us last night, along with 40-50 mile an hour winds rain by the buckets.

Today hasn't gone much better.

We woke, had the requisite tea and coffee, packed up, and headed out.We went north up Alberta 41 to Highway 3 west. The rain started right away. We stopped in Medicine Hat Harley Davidson to wait out the rain. While there we were treated to coffee, hot chocolate, tea and some friendly people. We did make a couple purchases. Neccesities only of course.  

By the time we left Harley Davidson, the rain had calmed down somewhat, but the wind had picked up tremendously.

The wind was enough to give us whiplash when it got hold of the helmets. Again, sustained winds in the 30 mph range and gusts up to 50 mph. Brutal on a bike. Normally the wind is not constant, it varies up and down with periods of calm. No calm here, if it wasn't blowing straight at us, it was blowing from the left or right. The wind was pretty steady....except when it blew harder.....which was nearly all the time. High sustained winds, gusts from  every direction, sometimes more than one direction at the same time. Very difficult to handle. The riding was so hard we stopped early at Ft. Macleod Alberta. This was home for the night. Once we got off the bikes it hit pretty hard just how much work that ride had been, A lot of pain was being felt. All of us were in the same condition. Thoroughly beat up.

It was a 3 bedroom second story apt. Nothing special, but comfortable. We split a half bottle of JD and some beers and fried chicken and tried to sleep the aches and pains away.
The next morning, it was off again
We went across 3 to Pincher where we had breakfast at Tim Hortons. Once again, the wind was ferocious. By the time we stopped for breakfast we were pretty well beat up again. We then traveled 22 north to Longview then over 541 to 40 north  to route 1 into Banff.
Although the trip to Lake Louise was long, cold and difficult, there were many things to see along the way.  This is what we were trying to get away from:

This is where we wanted to go.
 This was a bridge wash out that we detoured around by going through a creek bed.

 The road we traveled

 Some spots we stopped to investigate.




 Note my face mask. It was cold!
 
 Some of the wildlife we've encountered along the way, mountain goats.

As we often find, the scenery along the way is sometimes stunning.

We then headed on in to Lake Louise. We had planned to camp at the park camp grounds, but they were full. We managed to snag a room at the Lake Louise Inn. Had dinner at the hotel restaurant then headed for bed. Another short, but VERY long and difficult day.  

For some reason we haven't been recording daily mileage totals. We've had other things to worry about.  I will be posting a total soon.