Calgary-Elko Motorcycling

One great overnight riding trip from Calgary is to ride to any point between Fernie and Cranbrook and to stay overnight there. Fernie, BC is 300 km from Calgary, and Cranbrook is another 100 km to the west.

I usually ride to the Rockies via Banff and Lake Louise, but after I rode on Highway 3 in June I felt I haven't spent enough time exploring Alberta and BC along the Crowsnest Pass and Highway. One advantage of camping along the Highway 3 corridor is the warmer weather compared to Banff and surrounding areas. There is about 10 C difference, so the evening becomes perfect and warm to gaze at sunset in a lake.

My wife and I left Calgary at 4:30 pm right after work two weeks ago and we arrived in Fernie at 8:30 PM after stopping for break in Chain Lakes Provincial Park. I stopped at Mount Fernie Provincial Park to find a campsite with no luck. We then continued west until Elko, where Highway 93 South junction is located, to check Kikomun Creek Provincial Park which has 110+ campsites. To our disappointment all were occupied.

I glanced quickly at my watch. It's 9 PM, and we had nowhere to camp. The Kikomun Creek PP staff suggested me to check private campgrounds along Jaffray Baynes Lake Road that runs along the northern shore of Koocanusa Lake. She also suggested Norbury Lake Provincial Park – some 40 km toward Cranbrook – but I wasn't keen on reaching another Provincial Park at sunset time without camp site guarantee.

So, I decided to try the private campgrounds option. It's always safer to book campsite in advance, but I often feel it is more adventurous to eat and sleep wherever the motorcycle takes me. Part of continuous adventure riding training is train my brain to dealing with uncertainties. We always bring two sleeping bags and a two-person tent in our side bags whenever we ride for this situation. We bring food and stove as well so we can purchase food at local grocery stores. We ask people we meet in towns we stop. I review campgrounds and motels around estimated stop locations using Google Maps before we go since I don't have a GPS unit in my motorcycle.

The adventure option gave us a new experience. And that's what we got in a good way. I saw a campground sign when we rode along the Jaffray Baynes Lake Road. There is about 1 km of gravel road to ride before we arrived at Ayes Ranch Campground. Its staff were generous to us –free pops for us when they saw how little we carried – and we were happy to stay there, as it faces Koocanusa Lake so we enjoyed fantastic sunset views. There is no running water near our campsite nor lake water is recommended for drinking, so I got ample chances to ride my motorcycle on bumpy gravel road to fill up my water bottles.

We stayed overnight and the next morning we headed back to Calgary on Saturday July 11. We were greeted by a severe thunderstorm that blew my motorcycle sideways and drenched our jackets. We had to wait at Braeside Tim Hortons for an hour until the rainstorm disappeared.