On Day Five we debuted our new jerseys and set out for our next location on the hit parade. It was a 37- mile ride to Lake Louise, mostly on dedicated bike paths. Most of us stopped for a walk to see some falls.

Big, mean cattle grates protect Lake Louise. The grates were not great. Obviously we walked around them in the gates off to the right of the road.

Day Six was a hiking day. We clocked five miles up to see Lake Louise, and to do a partial walk around it. For our return trip we hopped on the local transit for a ride back. The beauty of the lake was marred only slightly by the hordes of tourists snapping photos of each other.

We were on the move again on Day Seven as we headed to our final city of Jasper. AIT provided some transport to help us out distance-wise. We visited the Jasper National Park Ice Fields, where we dropped off three teams who rode 65 miles. The rest of us continued on the bus for a while longer until we reached Sunwapta Falls, where we had lunch and then enjoyed some climbing and a 36-mile ride into Jasper. It was not a great day for visibility as smoke descended upon Jasper. Around the halfway point of our ride, we arrived at Athabasca Falls. We met up with some of our group for a short walk to see some impressive glacial waterfalls.

As we get closer to Jasper, we are riding into more smoke. We can’t smell it, but it’s clearly visible. The mountains seem to disappear.

Speaking of disappearing, see if you can spot three mountain goats in this photo. They have perfect camouflage.

Jasper is a cute town with lots of food choices. We choose another brewery for our dinner and enjoy the experience once again. After a dessert of ice cream, Mike and Caren introduce us to a new friend.

The weather report for Day Eight, our last riding day of the tour, is for rain. The forecasters get it right (for once) and we wake up to a wet morning. We use the down time to take the bike apart and by lunch, the rain has stopped while the clouds hug the mountains. We lunch at a pub, and enjoy our final group dinner at the Jasper Inn. The desserts were photo-worthy and quite tasty.

On Day Nine, the bikes are all packed up and we are tourists for the 300-mile bus ride back to Calgary. We learn about glaciers at the Ice Fields, picnic along the Bow River in Canmore, and then we visit the Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary.

For our tour leaders it was probably the strangest trip in their seven years of Adventures In Tandem. Participants received notice a few days before the start of this trip that Mike had Covid. Contingency plans were shared, but before we even started, Caren tested positive (and was not feeling well) and Mike was now testing negative – so, new plans. The Biancos worked very hard to make sure that everyone got the full tour with the least amount of possible exposure to infection. At this point (as far as we know) there were no other instances of Covid in our in our group of twenty and Caren is feeling back to normal.

Thanks to our tour leaders for the spectacular itinerary and all that went into making this trip a success!

We expect to be cycling in SoCal before the end of September- we’ll catch up with you then.

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