Day 3 - To Elkford - Over the Elk Pass - 80km - Raining

First crossing of the Divide in the pouring rain.... not an easy chore.

-Lesson 6 - When pushing your heavy bike up a goat path, Keens are better than mountain bike shoes.

During a map check break, after we descended from the top, we met Dusty from New Zealand. His buddy, Carl quit on him after just one day and is headed back to New Zealand ....so the three of us now joined up and carried on together.

After a hour of riding we came across a woman pushing her bike up a short and not too steep hill. Betty Haynes Smith, a high school math teacher from Corpus Christi, Texas. She signed up to do the ride with folks she met through the Adventure Cycling web page. Unfortunately they had to leave Banff without her as her bike did not arrive and when it did, it had a bent gear hanger that made changing gears difficult. Now alone, with a malfunctioning and overweight bike, she continued on. She slept on the side of the road every night after about 30km of riding each day. Nothing was going to stop this lady from doing what she had set out to do...with bear sitings and all...another inspirational character.

As we approached Elkford we met up with Dusty's wife Areha in their rented Ford Explorer.

We managed to make it to the Elkford Motor Inn just before the chasing thunderstorm caught up to us and ended the day with a nice dinner with Dusty and Areha at a mining town country bar restaurant.