Princeton, B.C. - Hope, B.C.

I was up early this morning, and on the road at 6:30.  It was still dark as I headed up the hill out of Princeton.  Several deer were on the highway as I rode out of town.

This was my route:

And the elevation chart I got yesterday from the tourist information in Princeton:

For the most part, the first 35 kilometres involved climbing, and climbing, and more climbing until I reached Sunday Summit. 

The climbing was slow, but I was making good time, and I was glad I had started early.  From Sunday Summit there was a great descent and then a more or less flat stretch that took me into Manning Provincial Park.  

There is a gas station just outside of the park entrance, so I restocked my water there.  It was about 10:30 now, and I had just covered 50 kilometres, but I was feeling confident now that I would make it, because much of the climbing was now behind me.

I was able to enjoy the natural beauty a lot more inside the park than I had early, mostly because I was getting more relaxed about making it to Hope.

About halfway through the park or so I reached my second summit of the day at Allison Pass, and after that the descent really got going.  It was so steep I was forced to brake occasionally, and could not take full advantage of the slopes.  Still, I broke 61 kmph at one point, and anyway it was quite the thrill.

As I exited the park on the west side I was tiring badly, but moving on steadily.  Meanwhile, clouds and moisture were rolling in.

With a little under twenty kilometres to go to Hope, the rain started; slowly, first, but then it began to pour.  There is another tremendous descent that begins about fifteen kilometres outside of Hope as Highway 3 joins Highway 5, and thankfully there was little traffic here, so I could take the lane and just coast my way down.  It was kind of scary though, because the cloud cover was making it very dark, and the hard rain was making visibility terrible.

The final ten kilometres were cold and wet, and fast, because now I had plenty of adrenaline.  I literally do not think I have ever been as wet on a bike as I was by the time I arrived at my motel.

It was 15:00 when I got to Hope, so I had made good time, but I sure did not regret having started so early, because it continued to pour for hours!  I had ridden the 133 kilometres in 8:30, with 7:18 on the bike, for an average speed of 18.2 kmph.  By now, I did not care about the stats, though, I was just glad to be drying out and warm!

The Travelodge did not have guest laundry, so I washed my wet and dirty clothes in the bathtub.  My shoes were dripping, even an hour after I had taken them off, so I set them up on top of a flipped over garbage can, and set up a portable fan to blow into them.

Meanwhile, I ordered in two pizzas, cheese bread, a salad, and drinks and spent the rest of the afternoon and entire evening in my room.