Day 12: Rogers pass to Golden BC (80.66 km)

Who knew going down could be as tough as going up! Today on paper was
a near total descent over half a kilometer in elevation from Rogers
Pass into Golden BC. If we learned anything from Rogers Pass, it's
that expectations can really set the tone of the day. Yesterday we
were expecting a terrible climb and were pleasantly surprised. Today
we were looking forward to a gentle descent and forgot that up or
down, you still have to pedal.

Nestled in the middle of the drop was a 350m climb up some steep
terrain. Also as you can see from the shot above, Vanessa and I hit
some pretty serious construction that in the course of about thirty
seconds converted our shiny red bikes into muddy, brown messes (I'm
really glad I was wearing rain pants... Vanessa was not so lucky).
The heat is something we've really struggled with as well. Dropping
from snow covered peaks to hot summer temperatures in the course of a
few hours really shocks the system.

All that being said, we're now camped at the edge of a river and rail
line on the outskirts of Golden and roasting marshmallows and veggie
dogs over an open fire so we really have no right to complain! (Don't
worry, we ate way more than this for dinner!)

Tomorrow we've decided to take a rest day and enjoy the town of
Golden. We surprised ourselves when looking ahead at our maps today.
Our next ride, which will take us up Kicking Horse Pass, will be our
last in BC. At the 70 km mark we will hit the Alberta border and move
into the next section of our ride. We figure that if this is our last
look at the mountains of BC we might as well rest a moment and take it
in.