The route through the USA and into Canada

Heres the overall view of the route through the USA.  Coming in from Baja California, I rode through Cali to meet Kevin in Las Vegas, Nevada.  From here we rode east and spent time hitting up National Parks and trails in Utah and Colorado, before jumping on Colorado's 'Backcountry Discovery Route' (a dual sport route mapped from the north to the south of the state.

We followed this north until the border with Wyoming and then jumped on the Continental Divide trail through Wyoming and Montana to the border with Canada. We took 2 months for this trip.

The route that we took over the Colorado Back Country Discovery Route and the Continental Divide Trail are shown in yellow on the maps above and below.


Canada was my last country, all the way from Chile. I had ridden about 55, 000 km in a total of 19 months. 

We arrived in Canada in October and spent the month riding around British Colombia; finishing the Great Divide ride at Ferny, then over to Nelson, Nakusp, Revelstoke, Kamloops, Whistler, Vancouver Island - about turn and back through Kamloops and Revelstoke to Golden, Canmore (over the Icefields Parkway) to Jasper, onto Prince George and finally to Quesnel where the bike went into the garage (later to be transferred to Vancouver and eventually stolen but that's another story).


First stop - new tyres, then a month buzzing around in the mountains and forests of British Colombia.



















Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Copper Canyon - Barrancas del Cobre - the long trip via pavement

Image
Every time I enter a new state in Mexico, I think 'this is it, I've found my favourite state', and Chihuahua was no exception. The Copper Canyon is somewhat out of the way, however the riding around 85% of the route shown below has been fantastic with huge vistas, pretty decent pavement, beautiful twisties and a remote cowboy culture that really does make you feel as if you're in the wild west. My fully paved route was 2,095km in total and is described briefly as follows: Day 1 Mazatlan to Durango, 250km.. Day 2 Durango to Cross roads, 240km.. Day 3 Cross roads (el Ciento Veinte) to Hidalgo de Parral, 170km.. Day 4 Parral to Batopilas (canyon base), 350km.. Day 5 Batopilas to Creel, 140km.. Day 6 Creel roundtrip to Barrancas del Cobra\Divisidero, 90km.. Day 7 Creel to (Basasiachi falls) Yecora, 280km.. Day 8 Yecora to Alamos, 330km.. Day 9 Rest day in Alamos.. Day 10 Alamos to Topalabampo, 245km (for the La Paz ferry).. The route is highlighted by the r
Read more

Journey complete - a bittersweet ending in Canada

Image
Well there you have it, my trip has reached the end of its chapter, all the way from Chile to Canada; 59, 500km through 13 countries over 20 months. That's a long time to spend in the saddle. Im having mixed feelings of course, looking back on all those incredible moments is quite overwhelming and difficult to assimilate. Heres a few interesting stats from my trip: 13 countries, 59,500km, 20 months; 15 land border crossings and 1 sea border crossing; 3 crashes, 0 broken bones, 0 ambulance rides, 0 emergency room visits, 0 illnesses 4 times run out of fuel (including 2 police rescues); 3 flat tyres; 1 runover dog (Panama - so sorry doggo) and 2 bird impacts; 0 breakdowns; although I did have some issues with a relay for a week, had to jump start a bit; 1 police caution; 1 police tow (Argentina); 1 non-passable sit down road blockage (Peru on the major highway north to Quito); 0 hostile situations (obviously avoiding the sketchy areas i'm hearing about here and there);
Read more

Overlanding Camping Lesson 101

Image
It takes approximately 4 hours out of each day to make and break camp.  Thats half a working day, then theres the 200 - 300km we ride each day.  Its pretty tiring to be honest, and obviously its easier to stay in a hotel, but at $100+ a night (in North America here), its just not feasible for the length of time we are both travelling.  So, we generally wild camp for free, or every now and again, we stay in a Forestry/ National Parks managed campsite when we either can't find anything for free or we have left it too late in the day to be looking for something for free! We have been using the IOverlander app as a guide for free camp spots, although often (especially on the offroad trails out in the bush), we come upon something before we get to a particular destination we may have pinned for that day. Theres a picture above of the two 250s loaded up.  We are both individually self sufficient for camping/ living off the bikes, although together, we are sharing (my) tools
Read more