Following my only icy morning, I headed off on the cruise down to the east gate of Manning Provincial Park at 8:20am. I stopped at the store just east of the gate (the east gate diner iirc?) to pick up a ‘sports drink’ and a snack for breakfast. As I was setting up to leave a car pulled in that had passed me on the climb the day before (3 bicycles on the roof). We had a good chat about cycle touring. The occupants were moving back to Ontario after living out in Vancouver for a couple years. Their trip east was a journey! They had planned for three weeks travelling south of the border through exploring National Parks. After leaving the Provincial Park, the smallish climb up Sunday Summit was next.

On the ride up to Sunday Summit, I experienced the first of only two verbal’s from drivers. The shoulder, and road generally, was not in great condition and I was given lip for avoiding some of the worst of it and perhaps taking 10 seconds out of someone’s day. My attempts to avoid the worst of the shoulder proved themselves warranted, experiencing what was to be the first of two flat tires on the ride.

At the 1282m summit I stopped to patch my tube (28km in, ~11am). I did not note to source of the puncture and patched the hole with a ‘no glue’ patch kit. This was my first experience with these no glue kits, that were recommended by a friend who has a road bike as well as an lbs back in Australia before I left. As a first experience, it was not a good one. The patch itself didn’t hold, and I was forced to stop to attempt to repair this a little later. This repair also did not hold (a patch of a patch—not a good idea in the first place) and I ended up stopping 100m down the road and changing tubes.

I continued the ride down to Princeton for lunch (65km). I left at 2:45pm and rode on to Stemwinder Provincial Park for a relaxing afternoon beside the Silkameen River. The ride itself was rather uneventul/not that memorable (I made minimal notes) as indicated by the lack of photo’s. It was nice by the river, and I saw my first garter snake taking a swim—when I was trying to jump in the river myself. A few minutes were required for me to immerse in the river, though it was not that cold. Whilst the campsite is located next to the road, once down by the river, the scenery/view was quite relaxing.

Camping at Stemwinder proved to be the first opportunity to use my MSR MiniWorks Filter and 4L Dromedary bag (a boil water notice in effect). These proved both useful and necessary. I had not checked, thought the MiniWorks and my water bottles were also compatible—a bonus.

All in all, it was a relatively short day, as I was still feeling the impacts of the climb of the previous day. I also had accounts of Anarchist Pass playing over in my mind, and was unsure of it I would be climbing it the following afternoon...