We arrived in Banff early Tuesday afternoon, after a 1.5 hour drive from Calgary. We began to assemble our bikes and grab our last minute supplies. But as we have begun to find out, everything on the divide takes much longer than expected. We were not ready to leave until half past seven, so we decided to find the local campground and hit the hay and take off early morning.

The next morning we packed our bikes, grabbed a few more forgotten items, and set off. We meandered through town and down the Spray River. Surrounded by mountains, the river a deep glacial blue, we were both awestruck. Soon a light rain began to fall and the terrain got exceedingly challenging. The gravel path became strewn with huge rocks, a bridge was under construction and we had to ford a freezing river. As we continued, we saw a ray of sun, and before we knew it we were greeted by an amazing rainbow.  We were still very far behind schedule and with no campground nearby, we luckily found a lodge that had a yurt to stay dry in for the night.