Route Change

My usual practice is to ride no more than 3 days in a row without taking a day off. Since I was in the very scenic town of Stewart after riding for 3 days, I decided to spend a day exploring on foot. At breakfast, a waitress told me about a nice little trail used by locals for snowboarding that provided a nice overlook for the harbor. After hiking that, I also almost walked to Hyder Alaska, but turned back because the road became too narrow and the pavement is a pain for walking. I got on my bike to ride there and only then realized that I had walked within a couple of hundred yards of the border and the little town on the other side. I ate dinner the Bitter Creek Cafe and got into a tussle with the waitress there about using the internet connection in the attached hotel, where I had stayed the night before, before moving to a campground managed by the same people. Anyone catering to travelers should realize that internet access is not for fun and games but a link to vital information such as weather, accommodations, ferry schedules and the like as well as the best method of personal and business communication. She could have told me that the Information Center had free internet access. Everyone else I met in Stewart was very nice.

That evening, while studying the map to plan the next day's ride, I realized that the option of riding to Prince Rupert and taking a ferry to Port Hardy on Vancouver Island had significant advantages. It would save several hundred miles of riding and eliminate much backtracking on Vancouver Island. Besides, this is supposed to be a West Coast trip and the riding would all be far inland while the ferry would stay along the coast. So at the junction of Hgwys 37 and 16 I turned west rather than east and therefore traveled for 150 miles in the same direction on the same highway as last year. But I tell you, between the junction with 37 and Prince Rupert, Highway 16, known as the Yellowhead Highway, is as scenic as any in North America. Riding it again was not disappointing.