Another day where we woke up to the sound of rain on our tent. Neither of us wanted to get up, partly because of the rain, but mostly because we were just completely exhausted. I woke up feeling like we had barely slept at all. Neither of us have been sleeping very well since it stays light out for so long. Once we finally got everything packed up and put away, we headed to the picnic shelter so we didn't have to eat in the rain. We made a little extra oatmeal since we knew we had a lot of climbing ahead of us again. By the time we were on the road it was a little after 10. Luckily, about a half hour into the ride it stopped raining and got a little sunny. On the other hand, there was a bit of a head wind which slowed us down quite a bit. The small hills that we had in the early part of the ride made us very wary of the rest of the day. I don't think we have felt this tired so early in the day while riding thus far on the trip. We saw another bear this morning! It was a pretty big black bear right on the side of the road. When we finally reached the start of the climb up Sunwapta Pass (6,676 ft)we knew we were in trouble. We made it a tiny bit up the first section of the climb, but had to stop at the pull off for a rest. As we inched our way up the climb, we continued to need to stop, the wind was definitely not helping at all. I was beginning to think that we just didn't have enough energy to get us and our bikes up and over the pass. A couple times, Joe said that he was "done" and began to walk, which is VERY unlike him. An hour or so later, we were still climbing. I reached a point where I just felt like I couldn't peddle anymore or even hold my bike up anymore. So just before another pull off I began to walk for the second time. I barely made it to the pull off and when I was almost there my bike hit a big rock and I just couldn't push my bike over it. I began to tear up from pure exhaustion and Joe had to come help me get my bike the last few feet. We sat at the rest stop for about 10 minutes wondering if we would be able to make it to the top. Since we had started the climb the wind had only gotten worse and we could feel that every last ounce of energy was being used up. Miraculously, after riding and walking for a little bit, we finally made it to the top after 4 hours of riding (crossing into Jasper National Park). The wind was unbelievable up there and was blowing us almost off the road, not to mention it was bitterly cold. My whole body felt like it could just collapse at any moment and I was surprised I was able to keep my bike on the road at all. As we began going down the first part of the pass, it began to rain. Luckily, we had an uplifting moment because we saw a couple that were riding up the mountain. They were touring from Vancouver to Banff and were then going to take the Continental Divide route down to NM. We were so glad to see other touring cyclists, especially after such a hard day we were having. A little while later, we made it to the Ice field's center. By the time we got inside, we were shivering and were really hungry. The center was pretty amazing though. It reminded us of a cross between an airport and a ski lodge. There were quite a lot of tour buses outside, so there were a ton of people walking around inside. It was really crowded. We walked around the "museum" portion of the center and then decided to go see what the cafeteria was like. Originally we planned to make mac and cheese on our stove when we got there, but it was really cold, raining and too windy for our stove to work. The prices were ridiculous, but we were so hungry and miserable we figured we might as well just get food because otherwise it might have been even longer before we got to eat (it was already around 3:30). We both got a cheeseburger, fries and a soda and were so glad that we did. Surprisingly the portion sizes were actually pretty good and we both left with full, happy tummies. We bundled up to try to stay warm for the remainder of the descent and then headed out. It was still raining and really windy. Amazingly after we had dropped about 1,000 feet, the sun came out and it was actually a comfortable temperature! We couldn't believe it. Our plan was to go to the next closest campground, but since it was only dinner time, we decided to take a little break in the pull off for a hostel. We relaxed a little bit in the sunshine and looked at our maps for a while. As we were sitting there, we met a really nice guy and his mom, whose names we later found out to be Julien and Maryse. Just as we were about to leave, Julien and his mom came walking back to where we were sitting and asked if we wanted to stay in the hostel too (they knew we would be camping otherwise). We mentioned that it wasn't really in our price range, but Julien said that he was planning on paying for us to stay!!! I couldn't believe it, we were going to get to sleep in a bed tonight! Our day went from bad, to worse, to horrible, to AWESOME! So, we got all settled in the hostel and then enjoyed some wine by the Sunwapta River with Julien and Maryse. It was a lot of fun because they are from France, Julien now lives in Montreal, but his mother was here visiting for a month. She didn't speak any English, so Julien was her translator. After relaxing by the river, they invited us to join them for dinner in the Cook Cabin. Maryse made some eggs and sausage and we snacked on bread with cheese. It sure was wonderful! To top the night off, we got to sit by the campfire for a bit, mostly in the daylight of course since it doesn't get dark til really late. While we were sitting there, we noticed another building that looked like it had a shower in it. We asked the hostel manager, Ben if it was and if we could use it. So, we got a big pot, filled it with water from the river, and heated it over the campground (repeatedly so we could each take a shower). Once the water was heated, we dumped it into a bucket and then you turned the nozzle when you were ready for the water to come out. The shower was wonderful, and pretty neat overall. We definitely did not expect to be getting a nice hot shower today either! After we had all finished with our showers, it was after 9 and to our surprise another couple showed up to stay in the hostel. So the 6 of us, plus Ben, sat around the campfire for quite a while. It was pretty fun because there were quite the range of nationalities there. French, Canadian, American, and Ben was German (in CA on a 1yr work visa); so we talked a lot about differences in countries. Although I never found out their names, the other couple were both in the Military; the girl in the Canadian and the guy from the US (Massachusetts). They had both served in Afghanistan for a year, so it was pretty neat to hear tid bits of their experience over there. We went to bed pretty late because we were having so much fun even though I'm surprised that we were able to stay awake that long. What an interesting day! We rode a very tough 34.87miles today.
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