Great Parks North - Day 7 - Wasa Lake Provincial Park
Date: June 28, 2022
73.92 Miles
1,975 Feet of Gain
Fernie, BC to Wasa Lake Provincial Park, BC
Morning crept on so we awoke to cover a long day's riding. Back out onto the heavily trafficked-highway, we veered left and downhill through the gaps and passes of the smaller Rockies before turning onto some backroads. The quiet ponderosas close in around us in this arid part - the nostalgia for AZ is great. Verdant grass sways with purple lupine. All so lush with so much winter precipitation.
Conversation drifts and flows around our lives at the Canyon and who I want to be authentically in the change of setting. And the temperatures rise. Soon, it's 85-90 degrees out and the sweat breaks off my brow and down my chest. Meltwater streams pulsing with sediment and iceberg blue gush down ravines and across neon green valleys. I jump off my bike and plunge my face, hat, and neck gaiter in them to cool down.
We ride along a massive mountain range crisp and sharp with contrast provided by swelling storm cumulus above and carpeted meadow grass below. Snow creases cracks. The day's weather swells with heat and the crackle of weather. We swing into Ft. Steele Resort as the temps smidge above 90 F. We collapse on picnic tables relieved with shade. I am present-minded; I am in the moment. So many times I feel that frontcountry distractions pierce my attention to pieces and now, singularly on a table under a tree, there is no attention but now. It rivets me to immediacy.
Thunder breaks the plane of thought. The heat has led to uplift and moisture-rich clouds are now bubbling and streaking blue from the sky. Day turns to night as a significant weather advisory erupts. We are on our bikes in the open - I embrace the rain. Janna and I pull into Wasa Lake Provincial Park where we claim a spot under trees next to whitecaps forming on the windy water. We eat an early dinner and return to our tent under threat of further rain. The Eolus gets battened down before we climb in for a windy/rainy night.
