Finally … the ride – should I have been worried?

What a day!

We got up, got ready and was out the door by 7:30am … we were to meet the transport in Castlegar (trail-head or in our case the trail-finish) by 9:30am and we wanted to make sure we had enough time to have breakfast and get our gear organized. On the way from Christina Lake to Castlegar we saw a Moose, totally cool – at one point, he walked in front of our car.

We arrived in Castlegar at the trail finish by 9:20am and had a few minutes to get organized. The transport, Jeremy of Mountain Shuttle (www.mountainshuttle.ca) showed up promptly at 9:32am. Once we got everything in his SUV, we were on our way. The plan was to drop us off at Paulson and bike back to Castlegar along the C&W (Columbia & Western) rail trail, CK and Jeremy kinda knew were that was, I was happily sitting in the back seat contemplating how the heck I was going to finish this ride. It took (maybe) 45min or so to get us to Paulson. The trail-head was down a long and steep hill and when we finally got down there, the realization of what I was going to do hit me hard and I panicked a little … it was raining pretty good and I was already getting wet. I swallowed my fear and once we got all our stuff (bike, gear, etc), Jeremy left us to our devices. We spent a few minutes getting our gear on the bike (where we wanted it) and making sure we were dressed properly. Since the rain was coming down pretty good at this point, I was already wet, and we hadn’t even started yet. We started out in the opposite direction (heading west), as CK wanted to check out the highway bridge so we backtracked about 3km (downhill). We got to where we needed and snapped some pics …

The trek back (of course) was uphill and I really hate uphill. We made it back to the trail-head and continued our journey. I was wondering why it was hard to pedal as I was under the impression it was downhill all the way … I was reminded (like I was told at any point while planning this ride) that the first 10km ish from Paulson were an uphill grade to the summit (Farron). I’m like ‘what!! .. I didn’t sign up for this’ – as it was too late so I motored along (grudgingly).

I’m a slow rider, I know this and happily admit it, I am even slower when it comes to uphill … I stopped a lot to take ‘pics’ and catch my breath. We stopped at an old monument where Peter Verigin was killed in a CP train bombing … http://www.doukhobor.org/Hannant.html.

Ferron was in our sites and after a very short ride, we arrived at the summit – oh thank god!!! Now, here is the issue, I was pedalling uphill and working up quite the sweat and that was keeping me warm. Now we switched to downhill and my nice little sweat turned against me and I got cold, fast. I was now soaking wet and freezing, my poor fingers and toes were ready to fall off. It wasn’t like I could just going indoors and warm up … so I sucked it up and continued on, not like I could do anything else.

We continued down the path, stopping here and there for pics .. the trail itself was in a pretty wooded area, so not much to see. You can see the trail littered with old railway spikes, nuts bolts, etc. Eventually we arrived at the famous Bulldog tunnel … a one km tunnel that has complete darkness, as the western end of the tunnel curves therby blocking light, you will need a light in here. I am not going to lie about this, I was freakin’ scared.

(update: May 28, 2016 – Recreation Sites and Trails BC (Ministry of Forests) has alerted us to a collapse in the Bulldog Tunnel that has effectively severed the Columbia & Western Rail Trail between Paulson and Castlegar. The 900 metre long tunnel is an important piece of infrastructure, as a bypass route would travel over a mountain pass. We have posted two possible bypass routes, but users should be aware that neither has been confirmed and must only be used at one’s own risk. That said, if anyone can provide a usable bypass route while the tunnel is out of commission, we would appreciate it greatly. Please contact us if you have a GPS track.)

Source: http://trailsbc.ca/closures

From there we came across many stone retaining walls built by very talented Italian stone masons, they were built to keep the road level so the train didn’t fall off the side – that’s my guess anyway.

Finally, as we were nearing the last 20km or so, other tunnels and bridges started to come into view … it is impressive to see and a wonder as to ‘how in the world it was built’.

During this time, the rain has stopped and we even, dare I say, dried, so not only was I not wet any longer, I wasn’t cold. I was able to remove one layer of clothing, the very large poncho, that was mostly just getting into the way. Now, this was fun albeit, getting late and I didn’t want to be in the woods at dusk. I was only about 3:30pm but we still had about 20km to go and that will take a bit (we stopped a lot). Now we are moving, going faster that ever, chugging along the old railway. We only stopped when we got to a bridge. As we started to get close to the end, we saw Arrow Lake … a large impressive bit of water. From up here, it was beautiful.

Then we saw one last tunnel, down by Arrow Lake called The Labarthe Tunnel (or the flooded tunnel) … you can access it early in the year before the spring run-off.

The road then changed from a gravel one with no railway tracks to a gravel one with a railway, tracks I knew now we were coming to the end. And then, around a bend – it was there … The End! We were back in Castlegar!

The rain had started again so by the time we got to the car, we were wet – again!

It was a great ride … on the way back, we saw a bear on the side of the highway, of course, who doesn’t stop for photos?

Back at the cabin, CK started the BBQ while I had a hot hot hot shower. Once done, I sat back to relax when I hear a knocking on the window, CK was calling out for me to come and grab my camera … right there, strolling through the park was a bear (cinnamon), who apparently, has been hanging around the area. It’s a very odd moment to be relaxing and BBQing and then a bear strolls through.