G.A.S.P. Part Two

G.A.S.P. The Great Annual Saskatchewan Pedal, Part Two.  Please read GASP Part One if you haven't already done so.

Well, have we dispelled the myth of Saskatchewan being flat, yet? After day four Sandy and I had pretty much renamed this tour the Yet Another Hill! tour.

Day 5:  

Maple Creek to Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park. This was a short ride of only 39km to this park that straddles the Alberta-Saskatchewan border. Short, but of course, hilly. The last climb into the park had yet another incline of 12%!   We rewarded ourselves with a nice ice cream cone as soon as we arrived in the park.

White Tail Deer, Cypress Hill

Day 6:  Cypress Hills to Eastend 

Again, we drove Boxy to the day’s destination, this time Eastend.  Yes, I said this tour was in the south west corner of the province, so why are we going to Eastend? Eastend gets its name from its location at the east end of the Frenchman River Valley. 

As we left Eastend to ride to the midpoint to meet our buddies, we had a long climb up out of the valley. It turned out it was mostly uphill for 20km. At least the return trip would be fun. Along the way, we passed this interesting sign which we subsequently learned points to an important prairie conservation area and home to a herd of plains bison.

We met Heather, Louise, and Louise’s husband Larry about 40km out. They all decided it was time I was properly initiated into Saskatchewan cycling. Yes, it was time for me to “ride the prairie camel.” I had no idea what the heck that was, but the picture shows me in action.  I am now officially indoctrinated into their exclusive club.  Total ride distance for the day was 83km.

Kate riding a prairie camel

There are badlands in the valley, and some years ago, the world’s largest and most complete T.Rex was discovered here. Nicknamed Scotty, this find has provided a much appreciated economic boon to the region.  

We were in Eastend on a Thursday with the town preparing for “Dino Days” the coming weekend, complete with a parade and lots of activities.  Unfortunately, our schedule had us leaving town before all the festivities got underway.  A number of the riders toured the very impressive T.Rex Centre that the Royal Saskatchewan Museum has built in Eastend to showcase Scotty and all things dino.

Link:  T.Rex Centre

If there are dinosaurs, there must be badlands.  Of course, that means, you guessed it ... more hills!

Eastend badlands

White Valley, outside Eastend

Flat Saskatchewan?

Day 7:  Eastend to Gull Lake.  

This was the final day of the tour and would see us closing the loop by returning to our start point at Gull Lake. The forecast was for rain in the morning and sure enough, it stared to rain just was we were rising for the day. Boy, were we glad we didn’t have to pack up a wet tent! 

We quickly headed out to drive to Shaunavon from which we would ride back towards Eastend to meet our buddies, then ride into Shaunavon with them for breakfast. We hopped on our bikes to head out only to discover that one of the shifting cables on Sandy’s bike had decided to pack it in, leaving her with very limited gearing …not a good situation with all the hills we seemed to be encountering. But what the heck, we had just driven from Eastend and the hills on that section weren’t too dramatic, so off we went. 

Although it was sunny in Shaunavon, we knew we were headed into rain, so we donned our raincoats and hit the road. We could see the clouds approaching us and we seemed to meet all of the riders in our group except the ones we were looking to find. 

As the rain started falling, we decided our buddies must have gotten off to a late start, so we turned around to head back to Shaunavon to wait for them there. About 3km after we turned around, Sandy got a flat front tire! As she got that looked after, I watched the dark sky getting closer and we could hear thunder rumbling in the distance. We got back on our bikes and tried to get back to Shaunovan before the heavy rain caught us. No such luck. About 7km out, the rain started coming down in sheets and in no time our bikes, legs, and feet were drenched.

Riding to the storm

Once back in Shaunavon, we went into a local restaurant to look for the other cyclists to find about 10 farmers having coffee. It was pouring rain out, and we were just a little wet, to say the least. As we stood there looking like a couple of drowned rats, Sandy said, “Well, are all you farmers happy now that you’ve got some rain?!” One old guy responded, “Well, we got an inch of rain and it’s still dusty!” They all had a chuckle over that then told us a bunch of cyclists were at the coffee shop on the next block. 

We eventually met up with Heather, Louise, and Larry after they rolled into town, also pretty wet. We had a nice visit while we waited for the rain to stop. 

Escaping the rain in Shaunavon

Considering that there was a significant valley crossing on the final bit back to Gull Lake and Sandy didn’t have many gears to make the climb out, we decided to end our tour in Shaunavon and said our good-byes.  Distance for the day was 43km.

We loaded up the bikes and I hung much of our wet gear up to dry on the clothesline I created for Boxy.

 Drying wet gear

Wrapping up:  

We thoroughly enjoyed this one week tour. The scenery was fantastic and the people were terrific. For the most part, we had hot, sunny days. We all considered completing the ride to Leader into that brutal headwind a triumphal badge of honour. And it was good that the only day we rode in rain was the last day so we didn’t have to figure out how to get our shoes dry for the next day. The total distance we covered was 493kms. We had an excellent time and will never think of Saskatchewan as flat again!  

"Flat Road" really?  Not on this tour!

By the end of the week, we felt we really earned the right to wear the spectacular, official GASP jersey.  We are now confirmed “GASPers.”

We are about to embark on our next adventure, heading out with Boxy to Sandy’s 40th RCMP troop reunion.  I am sure we will discover some interesting things along the way and I look forward to posting more updates.