Driving from Calgary to Victoria

Today, I made the trek from home to Victoria, to spend the week here visiting with Mom and Dad, and Stephanie and the kids. It’s going to be a working week, but being here I will be able to drop in and visit. I’m planning to head home on Saturday, and I hope that the weather plays nicer than it did today.

I got here, but at times it was touch and go. The day started at 4:45 am Mountain daylight time, since it figures that the day I need to get up early is the day that the clocks jump forward. A shave and a bite to eat and then Tammy and I were finishing putting stuff in the car and I was on my way. I took Tammy’s Golf rather than the Tiguan because:

1. It was only me. I could fit myself, my luggage and my bike in the Golf no problem.
2. The Golf is efficient: I made it all the way to Abbotsford before filling up.
3. The Golf is only front wheel drive, but it has snow tires. I figured snow tires were more important when crossing three mountain ranges in mid-March.

However, for the first 45 minutes, I was starting to question the snow tire thing.

The roads out of Calgary were clean and dry. But as I got to Canmore and climbed up into the Rockies, first there was some blowing snow, and then it started getting really sketchy. About the time I got to Yoho, where the highway ceases to be divided and the lane markings were all buried under snow, I was starting to consider turning around. But then the highway dropped down into Field, and I saw the actual pavement again. From there on, the roads were much better, and clear except for Rogers Pass.  Here I present a time lapse movie of my trip across Rogers Pass, which gives a taste of what the conditions were like. I didn’t have anything of Banff or Yoho, because it was dark and I was white-knuckling it anyways.

Once I was down and through Revelstoke, I thought my weather woes were over. There were two more surprises in store, though. Both were effects of the winter storm that is passing through the BC coast this weekend. The first was snow on the Coquihalla Highway, south of Merritt. It was only the first flakes flying when I went through, but apparently I just squeaked through before it really started. I might have had a repeat of Banff/Yoho if I’d been an hour later.

The second was just barely catching the ferry. The wind was howling on Georgia Strait, and both the 4:00 sailing (that I missed by about 12 cars) and the 5:00 (which I made) were delayed by the winds. Apparently the 6:00 was cancelled. So I was delayed, but fortunate to make it to Victoria in one piece and on the day that I intended. Let’s hope that Saturday is much more benevolent.

Oh, and putting the bike inside the car? When we drove to Victoria last August, my Norco was on the bike rack in the rain. Overall, that wasn’t much of a problem. The bike wasn’t that dirty when we arrived. I thought perhaps it might be wet (it was) with more schmutz on the road (there was) on this trip, so putting the bike inside the care was a good idea. Boy, was I right. Imagine if my bike had looked like the back side of Tammy’s car when I arrived…

You would have heard the profanity all the way back in Calgary.  😉