On the top of the Coquihalla summit traffic stopped. It would stay that way for the next three hours, obliterating our chances of making the 9 o'clock ferry 200 kilometres away at Tsawassen. The car was full to the roof, with two-and-a-half bikes on the back and a snowboard strapped to the roof. There were three of us in the car, me, my father and my girlfriend. Amongst a few hundred cars we waited for the snow to stop. As the sky darkened, it just seemed to get heavier and heavier.
We left much earlier that morning. A stop at Tim Hortons in Red Deer, AB at 6 am started our journey. The first bit was fairly quiet, with silent sips of Double Doubles and a bit of conversation for the first few hours. The weather was clear coming through Calgary and Canmore. The first hints of snow started in Banff and by the time we were in Golden the light snow had turned into a blizzard. We pushed on to get to the start of the dreaded Coquihalla as early as possible.
The Coquihalla is one of the most treacherous roads in Canada. In the summer it is a high speed thoroughfare of semi trucks and cars shooting over the mountains at over 120 km/h. In the winter, the roads turn into a nearly impassable miasma of snow and ice. There is even a History Channel show about it (called "Highway Thru Hell" where they chronicle the adventures of a heavy vehicle and towing company based out of Hope, BC. If you're into hyper-dramatic adventures of blue collar workers doing difficult stuff I'd recommend watching it). This 300 kilometre stretch of highway is the main route over the Coastal mountains separating the interior of BC from the coast.
This was our route.
After Golden, we turned towards the Shuswap lake. I spend nearly every summer of my childhood at the lake. Passing it by was a way of moving on past my childhood and into a new part of my life. The snow-covered docks and boat launches of my childhood gave me a sad nostalgia. It seemed so long ago that I'd been there. A lot of the businesses went under when the economy tanked. All of the rich oil mongers from Calgary could no longer afford lavish lakefront vacations, and stopped coming. It hit the area hard, and times were tough. This frozen glimpse at my childhood didn't last long and we shot past the Little Shuswap lake, past Chase and towards Kamloops.
The weather let up as we got nearer to Kamloops. This was a good sign. Roads that were frozen turned wet, and the snow spray turned into a peanut-butter coloured mud that is everywhere on Canadian Highways. "You'll have to wash your bikes when you get there" said my dad. The salt from the roads wasn't going to do the steel frames any favours. Still we kept going. We were still on schedule and could theoretically make the ferry if things didn't turn to shit. We got gas in Kamloops and started on the Coquihalla. Leaving town, we turned on the last radio station we'd get for the next few hours. "With snow in the forecast for Hope, we strongly recommend not travelling today," it said. "Just stay home today."
Well shit.
Most of my life had been spent in a 700 kilometre arc that swung around Hinton, AB. It stretched to Kamloops and Scotch Creek BC in the west, down to Calgary, Banff, Revelstoke and Golden in the south, and over to Kindersley SK, Lloydminster and Saskatoon in the east. That expanse of prairies and the interior of BC was it. There were a few exceptions to this when I lived in Kelowna for a few months, dipped down to Australia once, eastern Canada for a bit, Ghana and a few more short trips throughout the western hemisphere, but that 490,000 km2 was my whole life.
Now I was starting a new one.