The day that almost killed our appetite for this trans Canada malarkey.
What a horrible, gruelling day. Anyone who rides bikes knows that to take more than 11 hours to do 69km means a no-fun day. @KananaskisCounty your Moose Loop trail has no business calling itself a trail or being part of the Great Trail or Trans Canada Trail! No maintenance and no signposts make it impassable at best, downright dangerous at worst. We stopped counting at 40 fallen trees across the 10km we fought with this “trail”. The path was mostly invisible and had not been used by anyone except occasional cows, moose or elk (and one cyclist) in a very long time. It’s mostly invisible and, when you do manage to put in a hundred metres of riding you’re fouled by a fallen tree or bog. The area has had severe flooding in past years and the folks at The Great Trail should have bypassed these trails completely.
The day started out early on one of those trails that can be called tough, but fair. It was a trail, at least. It did climb relentlessly and was properly gnarly with abundant tree roots and rocks to keep us focused. After heading around Barrier lake and past the historic Colonel’s Cabin it climbed again – more dramatically this time. It felt almost vertical at times and we have seldom being so pleased to see anything as we were to turn out into the Powderface gravel road and its 7km of blissful downhill.
The turn back onto the trail was marked with a hiking option and a horse path for the first section. We figured the horse option was probably good for bikes. Not so much. The river crossing gave us our only hilarity – we thought tossing our shoes over and wading across barefoot was a clever idea. Or not. First Gill’s second shoe landed short with a splash and she had to run in with her bike to prevent it floating downstream. Bron’s second throw could only be described as comically pathetic. Straight up in the air the shoe soared, only to plop down in the middle of the stream and sail merrily away. As Bron was contemplating 35km of biking on spiked pedals barefoot, Gill managed to rescue it some 40m downstream.
Took a while to dry and next time we might tie them to our backpacks.
After a few kilometres it became obvious this trail would be nasty. Then when we turned onto the Moose Loop, which the Great Trail app and website said we should do, our hell started. We lost the trail so many times our GPS looked like toddler drawings. Our legs and arms were opened up from encounters with branches and rocks (and those spiked pedals) and we got more furious and more concerned that at our pace we wouldn’t make it out before dark. We almost didn’t. Only the well mapped last three kilometres before the Bragg Creek trails parking saved us with a shortcut, and we sped the last 10km on the road through beautiful farmlands to soak our aching bodies and shattered minds in the Powderhorn Saloon in town.
On a day when we rode whenever we could, we still managed 37,000 steps. Gruelling stuff.
Distance today: 69km in 11h15min!!
Total distance: 1,871km
Today’s climb: 1,415m
Trans Canada Epic 
So it is true about “throwing like a girl”
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