Kamloops to Marble Canyon

Day 10, 7th on the road June 09
Kamloops to Marble Canyon 128 km Total 783 km

I dedicated to today’s ride to my Mum and Dad. Today would have been Dad’s birthday (91, I think). They both died in the early 70s, just at the time when they should have been able to start enjoying the fruits of their life’s labours in retirement. So sad. I wish we had had many more years to enjoy them.

The ride west from Kamloops starts with a stiff climb before you even get out of the city – my altimeter showed a gain of about 1,000 feet. When you finally join the Trans-Canada highway, you are greeted by a big sign. As I could find no sign of another route out of town, I had to take my chances. Kamloops is a nice enough place, but I wasn’t ready to spend the rest of my life there!

Once clear of the city, I found myself in the large valley following the Thompson River (the North and South branches merge in Kanloops) The scenery is spectacular dry sagebrush country.

Although the general direction is down-stream, the highway designers had managed to provide me with lots of interesting climbs – why do they do that? The weather was getting warmer, and my water supply was supplemented by a cup of coffee provided by a nice group of Dutch tourists in a motor home. I met two solo bikers, a young Swiss chap and an older German man, both going in the other direction. Always great to stop and compare stories with kindred spirits.

I remember passing through Cache Creek on my epic bus ride across Canada in 1967. Definitely a greenhorn then, and this and other place names sounded so exotic and “wild west”. I still get the same feeling, maybe more so.

Cache Creek is the start of the Cariboo Highway to Prince George, but I followed it for only 15 km before turning left on highway 99 across Hat Creek. I say a nice outcrop of coal in a roadside cliff, I’m surprised it hasn’t been dug out by the locals to help reduce their winter heating bills.

The 30km to the Marble Canyon camp site is a solid climb, which I hadn’t expected, and my legs were already tired from the ups and downs of the Thompson Highlands. I reached 3,000 feet, the highest elevation since Hope-Princeton. However, the route is scenic, and I managed to drag my tired legs into the Marble Canyon camp site just before Valerie sent out a search party.A tougher day than I had anticipated, but lots of varied scenery and some interesting challenges.