Day 6: 89 Km-Green-->Red-->Grey, BC's Forests in Decay

Lytton to Cache Creek. Leaving the town where two rivers meet, the Thompson and the Fraser, we head for Cache Creek.




The tailwinds are with us as we zip along past forests that have turned from green, to red, to grey. The Mountain Pine Beetle, one of BC's most apparent and devastating climate impacts is an example of ecosystem failure and one of the many climate change feedback loops. These forests which once were a carbon sink have now become a carbon source as the decaying wood rots and produces carbon emissions which further exacerbate the crisis. Scientists estimate that between 2000 and 2020, 990 megatons of carbon will be released into the atmosphere (five times more than Canada's annual emissions from transportation). More information.

Back to the subject on landfills and waste removal, as we descended into Cache Creek, we noticed quite a stench, to our left was a towering hillside with birds and plastic bags fluttering around the peak. This is the landfill where all of Vancouver's waste arrives in unmarked semi's---half a million tons per year! Contaminants have been found in Cache Creeks water due to this garbage disposal system. Hey Vancouver, reduce your waste and stop dumping it on others! The photos below are of an interesting and, I believe, sarcastic billboard regarding this subject.....

Day 7 - 84km Hot and Sweaty into Kamloops

So yesterday we woke up to a delightful little rainstorm and unfortunately needed to pack up and head out during the downpour! We enjoyed Cache Creek other then the rain, checked out a local bike shop and got our bikes tuned into tip-top shape, had our first public recognition quote man in truck "hey are you the girls from the new hour?" Yes we are! Love getting recognized, makes us feel like we really are getting our message out there! Also that night at the campground we decided to do some outreach so we donned our costumes and went out to meet our neighbours. We met lots of interesting people with varied opinions and thoughts on what we were doing but we managed to get a good number of postcards sent off to the Prime Minister. We met a great family who were travelling with the their solar powered RV! Awesome! For anyone interested there is a company in Victoria who can outfit RV's with solar panels for around $1000 dollars!

Anyways I'm getting a distracted, so we left Cache Creek around 8:30am got a decent 20km behind us before we met up with Keston who had spent the night on the side of the road after pedalling out of Kamloops to meet us yesterday. He decided to ride in the car with Laurie for the next while so Nadia, JD and I continued on our own to Savona. As usual to decide on a meeting point we just tell each other we will meet at the gas station since typically these towns only have one! Although the other day we spent some time looking for the car since the town didn't even have a gas station and our plan was foiled! Keston joined us for the climb out of Savona, a nice 7km hill! Shockingly enough it wasn't too difficult and well worth the beautiful view of Kamloops Lake from the top! Sadly the ride down was much quicker then going up and before we knew it we were facing another massive hill! This is where the hot and sweaty comes in! The sun broke through the clouds and started beating down on us as we began the ascent to Kamloops, a couple hours of cycling in those conditions really wore us down and we were happy to coast down the big hill into Kamloops to our friend Will's where we are currently staying. After shower's for everyone we were once again revived and made our way over to TRU for a quick slot on Keston's radio show before a bbq on the campus. Later that night Nadia and I biked over to the North Shore to visit our friend Graeme. It was nice to catch up and have some laughs over a couple of beers especially knowing we didn't have to be up at the break of dawn to bike! The only unfortunate part of the evening (my opinion only) was that we missed the last bus back up the hill so had to ride our bikes up the long Kamloops hills back to Will's something I was trying to avoid at all costs!

Today we are having our first rest day of the trip! Although that being said we are still going for a bike ride this afternoon, Kamloops' first critical mass of the year! This morning Nadia and I each did a radio interview and hopefully we can get a couple more in this afternoon. We put on our superhero outfits this morning to head over to the local T.V. station to see if we could get some airtime but unfortunately there were no cameramen on sight. Hopefully they will make it to our send-off at the farmer's market tomorrow morning! So if you by chance get Kamloops local station look for us on the news tomorrow!

We'd love to hear from you guys while we are on the road, it's always nice to hear news from home! Until Later! - Martina

Day 5 - 40km (kind of embarrassing...)

Had a delicious sleep in this morning since we knew that we only had a short ride today, didn't get packed up and out the door until after 11am. Before leaving we were asked to check out a curious species of beetle since quoting the motel owner "being vegetarians and all thought you girls might know something about insects" unfortunatley for him we were unable to identify his particular species of beetle ;)

Hit the road during a bit of drizzle which steadily became more intense as we pedalled further, had a to pull over to rain proof my paniers ie: cover them with plastic bags but hey, gotta keep the gear dry! As we continued to pedal we were all a little nervous of the impending mountain we had been warned about by locals all the way from Hope. Jack Ass mountain finally appeared but was easily conquered by "experienced" cyclists such as ourselves. At the top we were rewarded with a great view of the Fraser Canyon. From there it was an easy cycle down into Lytton. The fantastic tailwind made it feel like we were sailing and we were swepped quickly into town. Tonight we are camping out at yet another Church Hall and have spent the afternoon exploring what Lytton has to offer, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the pharmacy stocks numerous organic goodies!

Tomorrow we're off to Cache Creek - garbage sequesteres of BC!
'Till later! - Martina

Day 4: 71 Km--Tunnels, Trains and Trucks

Woke up bright and early to beat the rain, out the door by 8 o'clock! We said goodbye to Emily this morning and headed out for Boston Bar.

Just outside of Hope we entered the Fraser Canyon, cruising along with the train tracks and the mighty Fraser to our right and lanes of cars and trucks on our left. One new challenge we are facing today is two lane tunnels! It is rather petrifying to cycle in the dark through blind tunnels that have no shoulder. That said, we made it safely (somewhat) through and are still here to tell the story.

In the past, I have always wondered how Vancouver's garbage got to Cache Creek as I drive this highway quite often and had never noticed garbage trucks. What I realized today is that you don't see the trucks, you smell them as the garbage is contained within semis that barrel past at lightning speed with great gusts of wind behind them! Sneaky little buggers!

At one point during the ride, we had a train right beside us. the screeching along the tracks nearly blew our eardrums out! It was pretty cool to have cyclists, trains, hundreds of gallons of water, semi-trucks and cars all barreling through the Fraser Canyon together--talk about energy!

We are now in Boston Bar, laying down after giant pieces of homemade pie with local fruit--delicious! We are already fuelling up for tomorrow's ride ;)

Day 3: 67 Km - Seeing, tasting and smelling the Fraser Valley

It has been a bit hard to keep up with the blog on a daily basis so this is coming to you a day late (but i'm still going to write it in the present tense :) I apologize in advance, we are having troubles adding photos to the blog--hopefully it will be working soon!

We attempted to leave on time this morning and managed to only be an hour late! A couple new people, Ashley and Sonya, have joined us! After yesterday's long ride, today's projected 70km seems like nothin!

Cycling through the Fraser Valley has been a sensory experience. The scenery is beautiful, we have been getting closer and closer to Mount Baker as we move along--surrounded by cornfields and raspberry and blueberry bushes. Roadside fruit stands offer tasty local fuel for hungry riders. And then there's the smell. Ya know when you're in the car and the poop smell along the farm seems to go on forever---well, lets just say that on a bike it literally does go on forever.

Another thing i noticed as we cycled along the farms was a couple signs related to the Agricultural Land Reserve. BC is set to maintain a 5% land base in the ALR--and we do. The problem is that most of that 5% has been shifted from lands that are viable for agriculture, such as the Fraser Valley to lands that are not viable for agriculture due to soil or climate conditions. The viable agricultural land that has been excluded from the ALR is used for subdivisions and industrial use. Today I saw 2 roadside signs reading "For Sale-2 Acres-ALR Excluded" and a rezoning application sign reading "Application to Rezone: Agriculural to Industrial". What are we going to do when the effects of climate change devastate the security of our imported foods? We need to maintain BC's agricultural land--- before the food runs out.

As we entered hope we came across a large welcome sign that read "BC HOPE -->", we stopped for a photo with the word hope and the arrow as it fits perfectly with the cause of our bike ride--that there is hope for the solutions to climate change and we will get there by moving forward :)

Stopped at the lake in Hope for a quick dip before saying goodbye to three of our companions--Alex, Caroline and Ashley--thanks for coming, we will miss you!