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Cette nuit j’ai eu froid
Je me suis languis de toi Le ciel était déchaîné Maintenant s’est apaisé Dans un frisson Je repousse l'édredon Contemple le paysage Non, pas de mirage Les nuages s'écartent Pour le bleu ecarlate Les cimes sous un sortilège Sont couverte de neige Que de magie C’est bon d'être en vie Routine du matin J’entrave la faim L’eau qui chauffe Le thé qui réchauffe Je prends mes affaires en vrac Les fourres dans mon sac Un coup d’oeil en arrière J’ai parfois la tête en l’air En avant, marche ! Mais ou tu te caches ? Le jour est bien là Je ne te vois pas La brise me glace L’ombre m’enlace Certains jours je te fuis Pas aujourd’hui Par dessus les crêtes Tu passes soudain la tête Perces la foret De mille traits Répands des flaques de lumière Petits paradis sur terre Je les dévore Comme la petite mort Merci pour tes merveilles Ô divin soleil Prends garde à toi
Voyageur insouciant Bercé par tes pas N’oublies pas les éléments Soudain un éclair Trembles sous le tonnerre Voilà qu’arrive l’orage Totalement impromptu Maintenant fait rage Tu ne l’avais pas prévu Une fois piégé Il n’y a qu'à laisser aller Tu gardes le sourir Rien ne sert de paniquer Tu éclates de rire Une bonne histoire a raconter Mais il y a plus insidieux Que la menace des cieux Tout va bien Le soleil brille Tu suis le chemin Soudain coup de faucille Etrange douleur C’est la tempête intérieure Tu te demandes pourquoi Respires un grand coup Mais elle colle à toi Tu te trouves au fond du trou Tout devient noir Teinté de désespoir Comme pour l’orage Tu ne peux rien y changer Deviens plus sage Et laisse couler Garde le sourir Il n’y a qu'à en rire Jaillissant de la terre
Elle trouve sa route Descend vers la mer Jamais prise de doute Quand vient un obstacle Ne retourne pas sa veste Avec patience le tacle Goutte à goutte le traverse Qu’elle soit lente et tranquille Ou rapide et féroce Tout semble facile Ne sous-estimez pas sa force Dans le vide se jette Sans souci d’en bas Un instant le temps s'arrête Puis s'écrase avec fracas Son meilleur associé est le temps Travaillent avec ferveur Et partagent avec le vent Le titre de plus grand sculpteur Sans elle pas de vie C’est l’ultime joyau Mais satanée pluie J’en ai plein le dos There were two options to cycle south from Jasper. The main one, the scenic and touristy Icefield Parkway or the alternative one, a 200km detour via gravel backroad parallel to the Rockies. My hip injury was holding me from hiking Alberta’s trails so I went to explore its gravel roads. And it was worth it.
Firstly because it was amazingly fun and beautiful. I found everything I came for : steep climbs, big views with no one around, no traffic, fast hard pack and super rough sections. I took my bike into some trails that weren’t suited for a gravel bike but it hold strong. I eventually had my first puncture but I guess that I cannot complain that those tires already last almost 5000km. Secondly, it was very interesting to leave Parks Canada’s Wonderland and see Alberta’s backside, or darkside. The mountains were blown open with mines and everyone I met in this wilderness was enjoying it via motorsport. I had to share the dirt roads with ATVs, quads and motocross. I also met a totally different type of campers who apparently cannot look after their trash. For the first time on the trip I came across random dumps in the wild. Not cool. Thirdly because this itinerary made me pass by the Folding Mountain Brewery and its restaurant that serves the best (and biggest?) poutine of the West. Halfway down to Banff I started missing the epic mountains and the Parkway’s world class views so I headed back west towards Saskatchewan Crossing with a strong headwind for 100km. It felt like I would never reach those peaks in the horizon but lakes and sky were magically blue and the sun was shining. At the Saskatchewan Crossing Resort I found the first very unfriendly people on my route. Not bad after 8 weeks on the road but it was surprising. After talking to a few other people in a close by campground, we came to the point that the HR made sure people were unhappy and rude before hiring their employees. Despite that and the highway traffic, it was good to contemplate this scenery one more/last time. Kilometer after kilometer the weird feeling of riding home was growing. This was the first known section of the trip as I lived in the area the past year. It was amazingly enjoyable to see it covered with green and flowers rather than with snow and ice. The very last section into Banff, along the Bow Valley Parkway, was even more familiar and exciting as this was the road I used to train on. I had a close call escaping a huge thunderstorm by a few seconds and found refuge in campground cooking area. It turned out to be a bloody excellent spot as it poured down all night and I was stoked to be sleeping on the benches under a roof rather than in my tent. The storm brought one of this summer’s nicest bluebirds and I made the best out of it hiking up one of Banff National Park’s emblematic summits : Castle Mountain. I had an early start in the morning fog that added some beauty to the winding trail in the forest. I popped above the clouds when I entered the alpine meadows blooming with flowers. From here the steep ascension passed the tree line into the Land of the Rocks started and the views turned from bucolic to breathtaking. My initial plan was to stop at the higher lake but I could not resist to push to the perched view point. From there, feet hanging above the turquoise lake and the clouds in the valley below, surrounded by a perfectly sculpted rocky cirque, bathing in the sun, listening to the marmots sing, I gazed at the massive ridge in front of me and its appealing towering peak. If I had come all the way here, I might as well make the extra effort there. I picked my own route along the landscaped and fully enjoyed this unique feeling of freedom. I could not believe the epicness of the scenery surrounding me but it even got better when I reached the last summit, at the very end of the range where I was encircled by sheer 800m drops in every direction except the one I came from. I could gaze in every direction, the Rockies flowering in the horizon. All this majestuousness all for myself as no one else was in sight, except the highway far below at the valley bottom. This was more than I could have dreamt of and it fed me joy for at least a few weeks. The last dozens of kilometers ride to Banff was an absolute pleasure even if my legs were (un)expectedly tired after this 30km and 1600m of elevation gain morning hike. I think I am ready to try thru-hiking again ! Je pourrais faire ci
Ou alors ça Devrais-je rester ici Ou aller là-bas Est-ce une bonne idée Ou juste une fable Dois-je être raisonnable Ou ne pas trop raisonner C’est la danse des options Elle me fait virevolter Pris par son excitation Je ne sais plus m'arrêter Ou est-ce que je vais dormir Qu’est ce que je vais manger A mes besoins je dois subvenir Mais je ne peux trop dépenser A chaque instant Je trouve un nouveau plan Ma tête va à cent à l’heure J’entre dans une torpeur C’est la danse des options Elle me fait tournoyer Pris par son excitation Je ne sais plus m'arrêter Toi t’en penses quoi T’as pas une piste Aide moi a faire un choix Libères moi de ce supplice Attends, est-ce que je souffre Peut-être qu’en fait La chute dans ce gouffre N’est que dans ma tête C’est la danse des options Elle me fait délirer Pris par son excitation Je ne sais plus m'arrêter Comment se plaindre De trop de liberté Comment peut-on craindre D’avoir trop d'opportunités Détaché de la possession Il ne reste que peu de terrain Pour la peur, le mental, l’agitation Avec patience, elle prendront fin C’est la danse des options Elle veut m’entrainer M’imposer son excitation Je n’ai qu'à observer The biggest enemy for the kind of long=haul, self-propelled adventure I have embarked on is injuries, when the only essential tool you have, the body, fails. For any reason, that idea never crossed my mind, until today.
Today is day 4 of thru-hiking after cycling over 4000km and living in my tiny tent for 6 weeks. Today, as I was putting my backpack on and stepping onto a new trail, a sharp pain burst out of nowhere in my left side hip. I have a pages-long history of small injuries linked with this kind of intensity, could it be thru-hiking or heavy multi-sport training, but this was completely new, something I had never experienced before. I tried to suck it up and kept going uphill for 3km until I couldn’t do a step further and collapsed in the middle of the trail in pain, with despair trying to crawl into my mind. There was no point, I just couldn’t do it and I had to face that reality now without thinking about everything it could involve later. The insane amount of mosquitoes that instantly buzzed around my legs and head forced me to make a quick decision. Good luck in this misfortune was that I was not embedded in the wilderness but only 3km from a trailhead busy with people. I stumble downhill cringing and heavily leaning on my one hiking pole. I stopped every 200m to breathe in a grunt but finally made it back to the road and thankfully found friendly helpful people who gave me a ride back to civilization. I am still unsure of what happened, if it is serious or just a body warning that requires a few rest days but so far this event taught me two things. First, even if I would like to believe so, I am not indestructible and overuse, overtraining and fatigue injuries do not only happen to others. Despite the fact that I am well=trained and that I need less recovery time than most people, there is still a limit, a line that cannot be crossed. My body is the only piece of gear I cannot easily replace and I should therefore take a greater care of it if I want it to take me all the way to Ushuaia. Second, this is just a bump in the road and not, as my thoughts tried to make me believe so, the potential end of it. It might be a turn I did not expect but that is the very beauty of the journey and why I embarked on it. Right now I have no idea of what is gonna happen, I might be back on trails in three days or pulled over for two weeks but restlessly going over all the options will only drive me insane. This was the only planned section of my itinerary, the exception to my golden rule : “why would I make a plan knowing that nothing is gonna go accordingly?” This episode just confirms it. All I have to do is letting it go, or going with it. Things happen and they are just things happening. We chose the way we experience them. I won’t let this one ruin my good vibe ! At the end I am so grateful this happened in this place, at this moment. Jasper is not the worst place to get stuck and it was super easy to get the help I needed. Also it was a perfect way to make me step back from my “pushing south” mindset and rethink the journey as a whole. For many weeks, people kept asking me which way I would go into BC after riding across Yukon. I would answer : “via that smaller road, highway 37 I think.” And them to reply : “Ho, the Stewart-Cassiar highway, you are a brave man! There is massive elevation gain and bears everywhere! It sounded like I was about to ride the Himalayas with angry grizzlies ready to eat me behind every corner. A very exciting and appealing program indeed but one should not listen too much to people stories, even more when they experience the scenery without stepping out of their RVs. As a friend of mine used to say, the scariest bear is the one that is in your head. I took the bet to go check it out myself.
I will relieve the suspense right away, I did not see any grizzly. Not even half of one. But I did see countless bears. Everyday I would ride along at least three blackbears. They never bothered me, at all. They were either scared to death and flew into the bush or intrigued and lift their heads from their munching to observe that weird looking animal with a helmet before going back to their food without paying more attention to me. For more than half of them, I realized that : “Ho, there is a bea right beside me in the ditch” only when I had already passed them. Regardless how many I saw and how they reacted to my presence, it is still such a pleasure and a privilege to be able to encounter wildlife roaming in its natural habitat. Too bad someone put a road there. Ho wait, I am riding it. Bloody paradoxes… Coming from the Alaska highway, the first thing that struck me was the narrower, windier and more charming aspects of the road. It was not cut through the landscape but going along with it, which involved some rollercoaster-like sections and a bunch of nice steep and strenuous hills. But I am still waiting for the tremendous passes climbs. The narrower and windier aspects of the road also meant no shoulder, forcing me to ride in the lane. I loved it because I would not get all the odd gravel and debris but also and mostly because it would force the cars to slow down and take on the other side of the road, leaving a lot of room in between us. There was less traffic anyway and it was forced to be slower because of the terrain. The scenery changed almost drastically as I was now riding through dense lush bush. I was astonished by how bright and green it was, full of life. No doubt this was a wildlife heaven. To have so much vegetation, you would need a large amount of water, which also meant a large amount of mosquitoes. The water was ever present, coming from the Earth and the Sky. I found numerous creeks and countless lakes from all sizes, shapes or colors. Some were dark blue, others emeraude green or crystalline turquoise. It even felt like I was already in Central America when I laid on Boya Park’s white sand beach with my legs dipping in the transparent blue water empowered by the clear blue sky and the glorious sun. It did not last the entire trip. On the second day, qs I was about to leave Dease Lake after a late lunch, lightning and thunder started their dance in the horizon. But I did not smell the unique scent of the rain coming and a local firefighter confirmed that it would likely be a drystorm. I went on and got lucky except for a 10min little shower. I was not as fortunate the next day. I saw the darkness raging towards me , the atmosphere turning to humid and electric. With no shelter for the dozens of kilometers I had no other option than keeping on pedalling. For five hours I rode through a massive hail and thunderstorm with torrential rain but at least it was not too cold. The highlight of this idyllic cycling afternoon was when I bushwhacked in the mud, carrying my bike over slippery boulders, trying to find refuge under a bridge to finally realize it was a metallic grid platform it was pouring through. I was cycling long days and was a little ahead of schedule which allowed me to do a side trip to scenic Stewart. Less traffic, smaller road, fun climbs, long descents, bluebird, big mountains, steep gorges, massive glaciers, roaring river and wild cascades, everything you could ask for the most enjoyable bike ride ever. Getting closer to the bigger highway I was slowly getting bored of the pavement monotony and the heavier traffic. But I found a few gravel forest service roads to cut across the mountains and get back to the wilderness. It was gorgeous and super fun, the perfect way to end this marvelous section of the trip on a good note before grinding the last hundreds of kilometers to the next resupplying place, Prince George, and transitioning to my hiking gears in Jasper. It is gonna feel weird to part with my bike for an approximate five weeks but I am very keen on leaving the roads to step into the backcountry. Dawson City was the perfect place to take care of both the bike and the body after the Dempster experience. I spent all my money on food, especially on icecream. After two days resting, I went for an unloaded dayride on the so-called Top Of the World Highway and started my journey South again on the fourth morning.
It felt awesome in many ways. The legs were fresh, the chain was not grinding sand, the weather was perfect, the terrain was easy, I had a tailwind and I was now flying on the pavement. The scenery was not as stunning as the last days on the Dempster but still offered some epic views. After only a few hours, I saw a big cloud rising from the horizon and knew what it was ; a forest fire. I was not expecting to get any as so far North and early in the season but so it started. What I did not know was that it was the start of multiple days of smoky conditions. I first went through a very, very dense area with an apocalypse-like atmosphere. It was pitch dark and you could not see 20 m away. I was worrying about my lungs but it was too late, I was in it and just had to get out of it. I put on the breathing face-mask I had brought for the dust on the gravel road thinking it would do the trick for the smoke. I rode this dark scene looking like a dark lord. When it started to lift up a little bit, I found a charming roadside lodge, an old log cabin I could not resist entering. Here started the trip’s biggest battle against myself: it is not because there is a restaurant or bakery or any kind of food that YOU HAVE TO get something, because you already carry food. I lost the battle that time, and I’m still losing it almost everyday, especially when I found a 1kg freshly baked cinnamon bun. I decided to do side-trips and explore as much of Yukon as I could on my scheduled way to Jasper and the Great Divide Trail. Half-way up the one-way road to Keno, a tiny historical community with an identically named peak granted with 360 view, I had to turn around because the smoke was getting too thick again. But I found a nice little spot with a clear creek not far from the road to camp. Not all my bush-camps were that bucolic! The trip ended up being divided into three sections. The first took me from Dawson City to Whitehorse with the aborted side-trip to Keno in 5 days. The second turned into a relaxed 4 days resupplying in Whitehorse plus riding, camping and hiking in the Carcross area with freshly made friends. It was truly amazing to be able to put the trip aside and spend some quality time with nice people. Our plans kept changing because of the thick smoke but we finally ended up hiking and scrambling one of the local peaks. It was such a great experience, untouched landscape with no-one else around. The legs appreciated the change of discipline and were fresher than ever when I started the third and last section from Carcross to Watson Lake in 2.5 days. This section on the Alaska Highway made me meet more cyclists in one day than over the two prior weeks. The road was mostly flat, I mean no major elevation, and cut as long straight lines which allowed me to often get down on the aero-bars. Days were hot and nights fairly chilly so I decided to start late (9.30 to 10am) when it was not freezing, stop for a long lunch break in the roosting afternoon (2 to 4pm) and ride into the evening breeze (8.30 to 9pm) because there was so much daylight anyway. It was cool to observe the darkness slightly conquering time on the light as I was riding South. I left Dawson with 24h daylight and got to Watson Lake with a few hours of dusk-like twilight. Being back on the pavement not only impacted my average speed but also my nose. Because of the hot weather, the typical smell of the warm asphalt bathing all day in the sun was ever present. Depending on the breeze, it was dominant or a subtle background flavour mixed with the creeks, the flowers and the forest breath. The cars, RVs and trucks passing by would add a more or less pronounced exhaust smell to this fine blend. Most of the drivers were nice and left some room when passing me but I always needed to be ready to be hit by the odd loose gravel sprinkled on the Northern roads, especially over the multiple construction sections. For dozens of kilometers I would have fine sand crushing in my teeth, making my mouth even drier than the smoke already made it. From time to time it would get so drained out that I would not have any saliva left and be unable to swallow. But maybe it was because I could not close my mouth, amazed by the surrounding wildlife, scenery, lakes, mountains, flowers and trees exploding all around me. My skin was fondled by the wind, which made me forget the sticky mix of sweat, dust, repellent and sunscreen layered on it. When stopping for lunch or in the evening, I loved to listen in the silence to the breeze in the trees, the many birdsongs and the insects humming. Such peaceful music after hours of wind harping on my ears because of the speed and all the super loud engines. All this might not sound like a dreamable and idyllic journey but all my senses were stimulated and excited by the discoveries. It made me feel more alive than ever. I did not just see Yukon, I truly experienced it in all ways, and it was wonderful. Il y a beaucoup de voies
Qui s’ouvrent devant moi Entre l’eau et le feu Je prends celle du milieu Offert aux éléments Mes sens sont alertes Le parfait alignement La route est ouverte Le vent caresse ma peau Parfois me pousse dans le dos Au petit matin glacé Ses rayons viennent me réchauffer Lacs, rivières et torrents Attirent la vie abondamment Un avec le sol Et pourtant je vole Fixe sur le goudron Glissant au hasard Perdu dans les environs Tout en un seul regard Bombarde de senteurs L’asphalt, son odeur Les parfums de la végétation Tout en une seule respiration Vissé sur la selle Plaque de crème Ruisselant de sel Tout sur un seul épiderme Des barres de céréales De la poussière j’avale L’air c’est gourmet Tout pour un seul palais Assourdi par le vent Le cri des moteurs Attentif aux grincements Tout en une seule clameur Les mains sur le guidon Les yeux dans l’horizon Chaque brise que j’inspire Me fait frémir Le nez dans les essences Les oreilles en effervescence Entier, je pédale C’est un régal Encircled by the lush trees
The blue lakes, the high peaks Drawn by the horizon Answering the call of Freedom Responding to the road’s invitation Lungs filled with pure air Skin cuddled by the wind Pulled by the serene sky Listening to the appeal of destiny Responding to the road’s invitation I am joy It flows in my veins Shines in my cells Every single one of ‘em I’m one with the trees The blue lakes, the high peaks I’m one with the pure air The wind, the serene sky I’m one with the horizon In brotherhood with the open road I am joy It flows in my veins Shines in my cells Every single one of ‘em One with the Natural World This is the ultimate bliss Welcome in Peace |
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Tramping, cycling, running, skiing, travelling, I keep exploring this amazing planet we live on. The following texts give an insight of my various wanderings. From poetry to trip reports or thoughts on particular subjects, this pages try to reflect how I travel through this modern world.
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Janvier 2020
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