Oldschool
Moderator
After scuttled vacation plans and having a paid campsite reservation a couple of friends agreed to join me for a quick out and back weekend trip. The plan was to run the canal route from Carseland to Vauxhall then run back roads the remainder. It just so happened to be mostly the TCAT (Trans Canada Adventure Trail) as well. As clouds rolled in I sat enjoying a coffee on High Street in McKenzie Towne waiting for my riding comrades to arrive.
The forecast called for a cool and partly cloudy day with a few showers overnight. Like most forecasts it was as wrong as they come, with a HOT day with just a few clouds drifting by.
As we rumbled along the canal service roads we switched between well-traveled fresh gravel to grass covered and little used sections with only one cattle gate to contend with that was lying on the ground. Not wanting to drive over the barbed wire, I moved it aside and after we were all past, closed it properly.
One connecting section (not beside the canals) east of McGregor Lake was so little used that the road-bed grade could only just be seen in the tall grass and weeds. Having an accurate track as well as a bit of scouting by me and we all decided that we would attempt it. The road bed was rutted and rocky in places and difficult to see in waist high weeds. A few close calls dropping into ruts we came upon a low lying, swampy area. I mistook a dark path through the area as road and dug into the gooey gumbo, a big black rooster tail as I attempted to keep moving. With a lot of help from my buddies (who had stopped when they saw the black muck flying up behind me) we extricated the bike from the swamp and back to terra-more-firma. A bit of hiking and we found a go-around beside the west fence, allowing us to avoid the gumbo and rejoin the track. A couple more tense moments, swapping ruts on the way up a hill and we were back onto a recognizable road.
Near the Travers dam we ignored some signage (something about road construction) and eventually came upon a large crew working on rebuilding a road. One of the graders came over and the guy leaned out of the cab asking if we saw the signs? I played dumb and motioned at my GPS saying we were trying to connect to the road just past where we were (pointing in the general direction). He was good about it, telling us to be careful since there were “a lot of young guys running big equipment” and said (with a laugh) if our bikes could handle it we could go past. I thanked him and showed him that indeed our bikes could. Once around that little obstacle we enjoyed another short section of grassy canal two-track before coming out at Vauxhall.
Dusty grid roads, some of them long and straight, but all marble covered connected us to the western edge of the Cypress Hills provincial Park. A few stubborn Cattle caused minor delays along the road into the park,(me having to honk, rev the engine and gesture threateningly).). The heat of the day dissipated rapidly after arriving with dark clouds rolling in from the south. After finding the campsite and setting up including my big canopy the rain started, and continued through the night into early morning. After sharing stories and whiskey, we retired to our respective tents, clustered close together in likely the smallest campsite in the whole campground. It looked bigger on the internet (I bet that isn't the first time anyone said that
).
I awoke to the same sounds that I had drifted off to sleep with, rain pattering against a tent fly. The sound of rain is relaxing at dusk, but annoying at dawn, (funny how that works). Thankfully it eased off to next to nothing as we packed up our wet tents and my big canopy tarp(which had kept us and our camp table dry last night)..
It was cool, misty, and breezy as we head south up Ferguson Hill out the south side of the park, part of a route that I created for the Gravel-Travel website. The two campsites up on top of the hill were more to my liking with huge tall evergreens throughout. The elevation gain was considerable and the road south out to the park boundary narrow and dark with tall trees densely lining both sides. The southern half of the road fresh, wet gravel.
Working our way south toward the town of Manyberries the roads were becoming more treacherous with very soft clay bases. Eventually my route took us to a road that was nearly all clay and no gravel, and proved to be impassable after the deluge last evening. I was leading and made it in the furthest. My riding buddies were somewhat more prudent after seeing me peeling up road, adding it to my tires. They stopped but not soon enough and we all helped each other turn around in the slippery, sticky goo, which added height to us with every step. It is a wonder none of us crashed considering how hard it was to even walk on the slippery mess. After some time clearing around the wheels (so that they would turn again) we retreated to the safety of the last good township road we had turned off. Not long after we found the pavement that took us through Manyberries and along the “Red Coat Trail”.
Once again joining the wet gravel roads that were to take us across to Taber I had to stop, having intense pain suddenly in my lower back and abdomen. It was so intense it had me on my knees and for a short time I couldn’t make sense of it. Slow realization that it was familiar and the last time that I had felt this was when I had a Kidney Stone about a decade prior. Anyone who has had this experience knows the intensity and unpleasant nature of the pain. Even women that have gone through childbirth insist that a Stone is more painful than giving birth. The cramping intense ache (of a Kidney stone) is astounding considering how small they can be. It is hard to think straight and at times the pain can blur your vision and make you nauseous. Nothing short of strong painkillers or getting rid of the stone will take the pain away. I stopped a couple of times in the next hour and a half to walk around and attempt to ease the pain, but all I did was possibly avoiding a high speed crash from distraction on greasy marble roads.. We ended up having to turn around and go back across the greasiest couple of miles of road when we saw that the only way out was as bad as the clay-mess from earlier. All of us had near crashes with the bikes weaving in (as Chris referred to it) Death Weaves. He was amazed that I recovered from the biggest one. The key was standing on the pegs, gripping the tank with the knees and keeping relaxed on the handlebars. The rear end must have went side to side a foot in each direction without spitting me off. At the last stop we decided to take the fastest route to the nearest town to our current location not knowing if there was even a hospital there.
When we got to Bow Island I had not seen a sign for a hospital, but did see one for the local RCMP detachment. The station was not to be found, and I was in total agony, and waved down a local kid to ask about a hospital. He knew that they had one and that it was on the other (south) side of the highway, and as we made our way back through town we spotted the EMS building a combination fire hall and ambulance station. Being a small rural community and a Sunday, it was closed and empty. They did have a phone number (other than 911) on the building and responded very quickly when called. The guys wheeled my loaded bike into the Fire hall upon offer from Kelly the fire-chief to keep it secure, and Karen the ambulance driver asked me if I wanted to go in her minivan or the ambulance. I told her that her van was fine. It was a whole 3 blocks to the hospital and we had just not seen the signs. My friends followed us to the hospital after securing my bike at the Fire hall. They had already offered to return to pick up my bike with a truck to get it back to Calgary should I be unable to get it home myself. At the time I had no idea how long I would be down.
The only thing that I had in my camping supplies was good old Aspirin for medication, and had taken 4 by the time we arrived in Bow Island. It, to be honest had not done a noticeable thing. The last Stone had required 2 shots of morphine to take the edge off so this was no surprise to me. After about half an hour in the hospital, while the nurse was making notes (having done my vitals) I felt the pain ease, just a rapidly as it had come on. A visit to the washroom and I contained one less nasty stone. Much like the first time, I was lucky to have my body rid itself of the nasty, excruciating stone on its own. A check over by the on-call doctor, another test and a shot of quality pain-killer (that would not make me drowsy) and the ordeal was over. I walked over to the Fire hall to retrieve my bike, since my helmet was with the bike. We continued toward home, with the proviso (from my friends) that we stay on pavement, as much as it pained me to do so.
The forecast called for a cool and partly cloudy day with a few showers overnight. Like most forecasts it was as wrong as they come, with a HOT day with just a few clouds drifting by.
As we rumbled along the canal service roads we switched between well-traveled fresh gravel to grass covered and little used sections with only one cattle gate to contend with that was lying on the ground. Not wanting to drive over the barbed wire, I moved it aside and after we were all past, closed it properly.
One connecting section (not beside the canals) east of McGregor Lake was so little used that the road-bed grade could only just be seen in the tall grass and weeds. Having an accurate track as well as a bit of scouting by me and we all decided that we would attempt it. The road bed was rutted and rocky in places and difficult to see in waist high weeds. A few close calls dropping into ruts we came upon a low lying, swampy area. I mistook a dark path through the area as road and dug into the gooey gumbo, a big black rooster tail as I attempted to keep moving. With a lot of help from my buddies (who had stopped when they saw the black muck flying up behind me) we extricated the bike from the swamp and back to terra-more-firma. A bit of hiking and we found a go-around beside the west fence, allowing us to avoid the gumbo and rejoin the track. A couple more tense moments, swapping ruts on the way up a hill and we were back onto a recognizable road.
Near the Travers dam we ignored some signage (something about road construction) and eventually came upon a large crew working on rebuilding a road. One of the graders came over and the guy leaned out of the cab asking if we saw the signs? I played dumb and motioned at my GPS saying we were trying to connect to the road just past where we were (pointing in the general direction). He was good about it, telling us to be careful since there were “a lot of young guys running big equipment” and said (with a laugh) if our bikes could handle it we could go past. I thanked him and showed him that indeed our bikes could. Once around that little obstacle we enjoyed another short section of grassy canal two-track before coming out at Vauxhall.
Dusty grid roads, some of them long and straight, but all marble covered connected us to the western edge of the Cypress Hills provincial Park. A few stubborn Cattle caused minor delays along the road into the park,(me having to honk, rev the engine and gesture threateningly).). The heat of the day dissipated rapidly after arriving with dark clouds rolling in from the south. After finding the campsite and setting up including my big canopy the rain started, and continued through the night into early morning. After sharing stories and whiskey, we retired to our respective tents, clustered close together in likely the smallest campsite in the whole campground. It looked bigger on the internet (I bet that isn't the first time anyone said that
).I awoke to the same sounds that I had drifted off to sleep with, rain pattering against a tent fly. The sound of rain is relaxing at dusk, but annoying at dawn, (funny how that works). Thankfully it eased off to next to nothing as we packed up our wet tents and my big canopy tarp(which had kept us and our camp table dry last night)..
It was cool, misty, and breezy as we head south up Ferguson Hill out the south side of the park, part of a route that I created for the Gravel-Travel website. The two campsites up on top of the hill were more to my liking with huge tall evergreens throughout. The elevation gain was considerable and the road south out to the park boundary narrow and dark with tall trees densely lining both sides. The southern half of the road fresh, wet gravel.
Working our way south toward the town of Manyberries the roads were becoming more treacherous with very soft clay bases. Eventually my route took us to a road that was nearly all clay and no gravel, and proved to be impassable after the deluge last evening. I was leading and made it in the furthest. My riding buddies were somewhat more prudent after seeing me peeling up road, adding it to my tires. They stopped but not soon enough and we all helped each other turn around in the slippery, sticky goo, which added height to us with every step. It is a wonder none of us crashed considering how hard it was to even walk on the slippery mess. After some time clearing around the wheels (so that they would turn again) we retreated to the safety of the last good township road we had turned off. Not long after we found the pavement that took us through Manyberries and along the “Red Coat Trail”.
Once again joining the wet gravel roads that were to take us across to Taber I had to stop, having intense pain suddenly in my lower back and abdomen. It was so intense it had me on my knees and for a short time I couldn’t make sense of it. Slow realization that it was familiar and the last time that I had felt this was when I had a Kidney Stone about a decade prior. Anyone who has had this experience knows the intensity and unpleasant nature of the pain. Even women that have gone through childbirth insist that a Stone is more painful than giving birth. The cramping intense ache (of a Kidney stone) is astounding considering how small they can be. It is hard to think straight and at times the pain can blur your vision and make you nauseous. Nothing short of strong painkillers or getting rid of the stone will take the pain away. I stopped a couple of times in the next hour and a half to walk around and attempt to ease the pain, but all I did was possibly avoiding a high speed crash from distraction on greasy marble roads.. We ended up having to turn around and go back across the greasiest couple of miles of road when we saw that the only way out was as bad as the clay-mess from earlier. All of us had near crashes with the bikes weaving in (as Chris referred to it) Death Weaves. He was amazed that I recovered from the biggest one. The key was standing on the pegs, gripping the tank with the knees and keeping relaxed on the handlebars. The rear end must have went side to side a foot in each direction without spitting me off. At the last stop we decided to take the fastest route to the nearest town to our current location not knowing if there was even a hospital there.
When we got to Bow Island I had not seen a sign for a hospital, but did see one for the local RCMP detachment. The station was not to be found, and I was in total agony, and waved down a local kid to ask about a hospital. He knew that they had one and that it was on the other (south) side of the highway, and as we made our way back through town we spotted the EMS building a combination fire hall and ambulance station. Being a small rural community and a Sunday, it was closed and empty. They did have a phone number (other than 911) on the building and responded very quickly when called. The guys wheeled my loaded bike into the Fire hall upon offer from Kelly the fire-chief to keep it secure, and Karen the ambulance driver asked me if I wanted to go in her minivan or the ambulance. I told her that her van was fine. It was a whole 3 blocks to the hospital and we had just not seen the signs. My friends followed us to the hospital after securing my bike at the Fire hall. They had already offered to return to pick up my bike with a truck to get it back to Calgary should I be unable to get it home myself. At the time I had no idea how long I would be down.
The only thing that I had in my camping supplies was good old Aspirin for medication, and had taken 4 by the time we arrived in Bow Island. It, to be honest had not done a noticeable thing. The last Stone had required 2 shots of morphine to take the edge off so this was no surprise to me. After about half an hour in the hospital, while the nurse was making notes (having done my vitals) I felt the pain ease, just a rapidly as it had come on. A visit to the washroom and I contained one less nasty stone. Much like the first time, I was lucky to have my body rid itself of the nasty, excruciating stone on its own. A check over by the on-call doctor, another test and a shot of quality pain-killer (that would not make me drowsy) and the ordeal was over. I walked over to the Fire hall to retrieve my bike, since my helmet was with the bike. We continued toward home, with the proviso (from my friends) that we stay on pavement, as much as it pained me to do so.
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