A Couple Cycle Toured Through the Canadian Rockies Pulling Kayaks. This Is the Stunning Landscape They Found.
Cycle touring with kayaks is not easy. In addition to the 20kg of camping gear, food, and clothing, two kayaks add a further 40kg with the trailer.
Starting in Vancouver and cycling over 2,500km to the Rockies and back meant we pulled our beastly luggage across more than just a flat valley trail. From sea level, we climbed thousands of metres of altitude with steep grades over some of Canada’s highest highway passes into the alpine. Neither of us were cycle tourists; I was hardly a cyclist. But the idea of a human powered adventure and the allure of slowly exploring British Columbia and the Rockies won us over.
In six weeks, we crossed seven mountain ranges, followed river valleys for hundreds of kilometres and sweated through a sprawling arid desert beside the sage bushes and tumbleweeds. We followed historic gold rush trails, abandoned train routes, and glacial alpine passes.