One of my motorcycle rites of spring is to ride part of what the Tourism office refers to as the Hotsprings loop. From Nelson, BC head out to Balfour along part of Kootenay Lake known as the West Arm. From Balfour, the route leads up the West side of Kootenay Lake past Ainsworth Hotsprings to the small lakeside town of Kaslo before veering West over the Selkirk Mountains onHighway 31A to New Denver, which lies on East side of Slocan Lake. From New Denver the route follows Slocan Lake souththe to the Slocan River along Highway 6 and then East to Nelson. All told, 216km of great scenery and virtually no traffic(at least yesterday, later in the year it'll get a lot busier).
Here's alink to the ride:
http://goo.gl/maps/VyH6w
31A is one of the popular destination ride in this area as it goes over some picturesque mountains between Kootenay and Slocan Lakes. And oh yeah, there's lots of twisties along the way, about 50kms of them! It was a sunny but brisk day with temps peaking at 53F and a low of 43F over the pass. Here's what it looked like at the top of 31A, a frozen and snow covered Bear Lake!
(OK, not sure how to insert image)
The sweeper had been over about 40km out of the 50 between Kaslo and New Denver, fortunately the unswept 10km were a unit on the Kaslo end! Most years i make this ride a little earlier in April but this spring has been so cold that it wasn't possible for me before today.
Didn't see a single LEO in 220km, maybe they were all eating their Easter chocolate and drinking coffee. As for traffic, I didn't have to pass a single vehicle all the way from the Kootenay Lake Ferry Landing at Balfour to Slocan City(I did have to ride behind 2 vehicles between New Denver and Silverton for 2km),a distance of around 75 kilometers.
Here's alink to the ride:
http://goo.gl/maps/VyH6w
31A is one of the popular destination ride in this area as it goes over some picturesque mountains between Kootenay and Slocan Lakes. And oh yeah, there's lots of twisties along the way, about 50kms of them! It was a sunny but brisk day with temps peaking at 53F and a low of 43F over the pass. Here's what it looked like at the top of 31A, a frozen and snow covered Bear Lake!
(OK, not sure how to insert image)
The sweeper had been over about 40km out of the 50 between Kaslo and New Denver, fortunately the unswept 10km were a unit on the Kaslo end! Most years i make this ride a little earlier in April but this spring has been so cold that it wasn't possible for me before today.
Didn't see a single LEO in 220km, maybe they were all eating their Easter chocolate and drinking coffee. As for traffic, I didn't have to pass a single vehicle all the way from the Kootenay Lake Ferry Landing at Balfour to Slocan City(I did have to ride behind 2 vehicles between New Denver and Silverton for 2km),a distance of around 75 kilometers.
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