2,278 Mile Adventure on a Valkyrie...
by Neal West

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Sunday: Vernon, British Columbia, Canada  & Monday: Banff, Alberta, Canada

I woke up Sunday morning, hoping for sun. My hopes were soon dashed when I looked outside and saw an overcast sky filled with gray clouds. However, the roads seemed to be dry. Since I had not planned on leaving until about 9 o’clock, I leisurely packed my bike and took care of last minute preparations.

Sitting in my chair in the family room, watching the weather on the morning news, I noticed several bands of rain being depicted by the Doppler radar image being discussed by the weatherman. No sooner had the weatherman bid his smiling, cheerful goodbye, than a few drops of rain began peppering the skylight in our kitchen. Seeing this, I quickly put on my shoes, kissed my wife goodbye, and headed out the door in an attempt to beat the rain, which was moving west to east.

As I turned east on I-90 and accelerated to 80, er, cruising speed, a few spatters of rain hit my windscreen. Other than that, I had dry roads and no rain fell as I crossed Snoqualmie Pass on my way to Blewitt Pass and Leavenworth. The skies ahead promised less of a threat of rain, but still held some clouds.

Turning off I-90 at Cle Elum, I stopped for a five-minute break and gas at the local Texaco station. Back on the bike, I caught state route 97 eastbound toward Leavenworth.

The road to Blewitt Pass is a motorcycle rider’s version of heaven. Plenty of sweeping turns, slopes, passing lanes, cars to pass, etc make this a great road. The road itself is generally in great shape, which just a few "patched" areas that provide occasional roughness.

A scant 42 miles later and I was rolling to a stop at the junction of highway 2 and 97. Making a right turn, I headed toward Wenatchee and the Columbia River. Here, state route 2 and 97 are one and the same for a period of time. The combined route 2 and 97 between Leavenworth and Wenatchee is unremarkable, other than some nice views of farms along the Wenatchee River.

Soon I was headed north on highway 97, with state route 2 departing on its eastward trek just north of Wenatchee. The Columbia River parallels highway 97, winding its way along the west side of the road. Rolling hills, a few state parks and an occasional gas station mark the route. Glancing at the river, I wondered if it would make a spot for wakeboarding with my son.

Highway 97 crosses the Columbia at Chelan. After crossing the river, I pulled off the road to check the map, and determine whether I had enough gas to make the next "large" town, or whether I should stop at Chelan. About 45 miles away, Omak appeared to be a likely stop, promising both gas for the bike and food for me.

Catching a quick lunch at BK in Omak, I reviewed the map, and determined that the border was about 45 miles away, and Vernon (my planned stop for the night) was another 100 kilometers beyond that. (As the day passed, I became pretty good at converting kilometers to miles and liters to gallons. It wasn’t until the next day that I realized I had a built-in conversion feature on my speedometer. All I had to do was read the kilometer portion, and see what the equivalent miles were. Duh!)

Rain fell intermittently between Omak and the Canadian border. Never hard enough to cause me to want to stop and put on my raingear, but enough to make a mess of my shiny chrome. Oh, well, I needed something to do that night any way.

No sooner had I answered the various questions posed by the man in the booth at customs (How long do you plan to stay? What is the purpose of the trip? Do you have any fresh fruits or vegetables with you? Are you packing any firearms? Yes sir, an Uzi and an AK 47 are stuffed in my pack…), than I noticed the rain had stopped. I must have answered all the questions right.

The scenery changed a little from Washington to Canada. Rolling hills gave way to a valley that was the home of various wineries. In addition, Lake Kalamalka stretches along side the road. Lake Kalamalka is remarkable in that it is green-blue in color, even with clouds overhead. I also noted some of the rivers (including those I would pass the next day) were also green-blue or gray-green. I asked a local about the colors, but he was not sure what is behind it. It doesn’t really matter what causes it; the effect is remarkable.

My happiness at the lack of rain at the border was short-lived. As I approached Kelowna (one of the larger cities in this part of BC), some rather large drops of rain began to pelt my windscreen and helmet. Looking out over the valley I had yet to traverse, I could see that I was in for some more. However, being a manly man, I figured "What the heck, its only 50 kilometers (30 miles) to Vernon…I can make that in 30 minutes." Little did I know that the speed limit for most of the way was 50 to 70 kilometers per hour (around 30 to 40 miles per hour), and that I would spend much of the time stuck behind some very slow moving vehicles. Needless to say, I got a little wet. Next time, the rain gear goes on!

One thing deserves mentioning. The BC police are very sneaky. They employ two methods of catching speeders (What, me speed?). First, they set up a laser on a tri-pod at the side of the road (usually just around a curve), and if you are caught speeding, a guy in a yellow and black outfit literally jumps into the road and points you to a nearby convenient parking spot, where he will give you a welcoming ticket to Canada. The next method is even more sinister. In this method, they park a normal-looking mini-van next to the road, and place a radar device about 10 yards in front of the van, pointing away down the road. If you pass the van and then the radar unit and you are speeding, a camera in the van takes your picture, and a ticket is mailed to you. Great. Just what I needed. As far as I could tell, I was not speeding (well, not by much) when I went by the one van I saw during the day.

I checked into a Best Western in Vernon, BC at about 4:30pm, approximately 370 miles from home. Later that night, I walked about a mile to a restaurant to catch dinner, and hoofed it back to write this report, and then took my Valkyrie to a car wash. Later, I placed a call to my wife, and let her know things had gone well.

I woke up on Monday to the sound of rain outside the window of my hotel room. Actually, it was a garbage truck doing its thing, but it caused me to look out the window anyway. What I saw was depressing. Not a light mist or drizzle, but rain in buckets was pouring from the sky.

The night before, I had called my wife and discussed the possibility of canceling the trip due to the lousy weather. According to the Environment Canada weather website, the chance of rain for the Banff area had been raised from 30% to 70% during the day, and there was a mention of possible snow flurries. "What the hell?!? Snow flurries???" This was not my idea of a vacation!

My wife was not sympathetic. Basically, she told me that it was ridiculous to buy rain gear, haul it all over the place, and at the first sign of rain turn tail and run. (Actually, I think that is putting her comments mildly.) Did I mention that in 15,000 miles, I had never had to ride in rain? Well, my luck had run out.

I waited around the hotel room until about 9:30, hoping the rain would let up. Sure enough, it stopped pouring for a few minutes, and I began to don my rain gear and prepare for a wet day.

Here is where I ran into a small problem. In late spring, I had the liner of my jacket converted to something like an electric vest. However, I never had an opportunity to put it in the jacket and try it on. Since I felt the temperature was getting low enough to call for a little electric heat comfort, I decided to give it a try.

Note to self: Always try on gear before leaving on a long trip. I put on my jacket and felt like a tick about ready to pop! I looked like the Michelin tire man; I couldn’t move my arms because the jacket and liner were so tight. So off came the liner, and into the saddlebags it went. (I planned to ship it home the next day.)

Putting my raingear on over my leathers, I noted that it did not take long to start working up a sweat. Travelling during the day would prove that the combination of leathers, rain gear and electric gloves would keep me toasty warm, despite low temperatures and rain.

While the rain petered out about 15 miles out of town, I left the rain gear on and vowed that I would not be caught in any long-term rainstorm without it. That proved good thinking, as it rained hard at least twice during the day, for about 10 to 15 miles each time. However, the raingear did its job, and I did not have even one drop show up where it was not wanted.

The first 30 or so miles out of Vernon passed through a long valley. Lush, green grass and corn covered the floor of the valley. A river wound its way through the valley, and at one point, fed into a large lake. Great scenery, but the road had a maximum speed limit of 80 kph (about 50 mph).

Somewhere along the line, my trip odometer stopped at 99.9 miles. Since I rely on that odometer to gauge when I need to stop for gas, I was a bit disturbed about the possibility of making the rest of the trip with out it in proper working condition. I tapped it a couple of times, reset it twice, and it then seemed to work OK. However, by now I had hopelessly lost any idea of how long I had to go to empty (actually reserve, but I don’t push it). So I stopped for gas at a Shell station at the crossroads of highway 97A and Highway 1, the Trans-Canada highway.

After fueling the bike, I rolled over to where a fellow motorcyclist was stopped and inquired as to where he was headed. He informed me that he was headed to Kelowna, and had just crossed through the Rockies by way of the Trans-Canada highway. He indicated that it had rained a lot during the trip, so I decided the leaving the rain gear on was a good idea.

The Trans-Canada highway is interesting. From the junction with 97A, it consists mainly of two lanes (one each direction) and passing lanes, which may last for several kilometers. About 15 miles out of Banff, the highway turns into a regular free way, with two lanes in each direction.

The thing that amazed me is how the drivers reacted to the differing sections of highway. On the two-lane variety, they seemed to travel 80 kilometers per hour, the posted maximum. It was not unusual to have 15 or 20 cars lined up, making passing a moot point.

It is a different story when the passing lanes are encountered. At that point, it is like every driver thinks he or she is in the Indy 500. Grandmas, grandpas, moms in minivans, semi’s, cars with trailers, etc., all immediately punch the gas pedal all the way to the floor. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is suddenly moving at 110 to 120 kph (around 75) and all except a few move to the left, or passing, lane. That maneuver effectively renders the passing lane ineffective.

The road through the Canada’s Glacier Park (not to be confused with the Waterton-Glacier National Park in Montana) winds its way through towering mountains, accompanied by numerous gray-green rivers, streams, waterfalls, etc. The mountains are spectacular, reaching far about the timberline, and brushed at the top by a fresh dusting of snow.

I was not able to take as many pictures as I would like due to a couple of reasons. First, once I was going, I hesitated to stop and wrestle with taking off a helmet, undoing my electric gloves, finding the camera, etc. Second, there are very few turn-offs or places where I would feel comfortable exiting the road and doing all the things needed to take a picture. The cars are just too close. I was able to take a few pictures, however.

I stopped for lunch at an A&W in Golden, and then gassed up the bike, having come some 130 miles since the junction of 97A and highway 1. I didn’t bother making the conversion of liters to gallons, but my guess was this was my best gas mileage of the trip.

I also had time to ask a truck driver about the road ahead of me. He indicated that rain was falling quite heavily near Field, a pass about 40 miles out of Banff. I surrendered and again put on the rain gear, which I had taken off for lunch.

Just out of Golden, traffic came to a screeching halt. I soon discovered that six mountain goats were resting along side the road, and drivers were slowing to take a close look as they passed.

Somewhere along the line I passed the Continental Divide. It was kind of interesting to suddenly see the streams and rivers flowing in the opposite direction from what I had witnessed for the first several hundred miles of my trip.

At about 4:30 I rolled into Banff, found my hotel, and checked in.

* Estimates…the garage where my bike is parked is closed for the night

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