By Larry Weiss

At Jasper, and at most of the lakes in the mountains, the water was green and absolutely clear. You could see way down into the bottom of the lakes. Years later, I learned the reason

why the lakes were green and so clear. Most of the lakes were fed from glaciers. As these glaciers moved ever so slowly, they ground the stone into fine dust, more like flour. This "glacier flour" washed with the melting snow and ice, down into the lakes, and would settle at the bottom. This made the water reflect a green color, and since the lakes were made of snow and glacier water, it was very clear. These were cold but beautiful lakes. There were a few lakes that weren't quite as clear and green since they were fed from rivers and streams.

As we traveled through mountains and past lakes, we saw a great deal of wildlife. Moose would be in the wetter or swampy areas. Big horned rams and mountain goats were all over the high sides of the mountains. We saw lots of bears, and many types of them. There were plenty of smaller animals, too, and small and large birds, including eagles. Back then, wildlife definitely out-numbered the humans in the area. Not so today. Tough there is a great deal of wildlife, there are even more tourists.

Well, after we headed out from Lake Louise, we climbed another high mountain and then had a fifteen mile coast down the other side. Only about half of us had hand brakes, the others had coaster brakes. To keep from reaching dangerous speeds, almost half the group burned out their brakes. They ended up walking their bikes down the mountain. There where too many damaged brakes, and not enough parts for me to fix them. We worried about how we were going to continue to Banff, our next stop. It would be the first place to get parts to fix the bikes. As we got to the bottom of the mountain, we discovered a Forest Ranger Post. There were several men there and two ½-ton pickups. They offered to drive the broken bikes to Banff, but couldn't imagine getting all our bikes and us on the two little trucks. I asked if it would be alright if we tried, and they said sure. Well, if you ever wanted to see a sight, it was all of us, our packs, and our bikes loaded on the trucks. Of course, we took lots of pictures!

Later, when I was fourteen, I sat down and wrote an article about the incident, and sent it, along with some pictures, to a national bicycling magazine. Much to my surprise, the article and pictures were published. In recent years, I spent a lot of time researching the name of the magazine over the internet, with the possibility of getting a copy of the article. I had many magazine editors reply to me and offer suggestions, but to my huge disappointment, I never found it. I would really love to have a copy of it. They printed the article just as I had written it. It took three or four pages in this national magazine, which, at the time, was the most known and popular cycling magazine. It would have been great to show my children and grandchildren. I was really proud of having an article published.

When we got to Banff, we repaired our bikes and touring the area. The Banff Hotel was magnificent. While in the lobby, I sat at one of the desks and found hotel stationary and envelopes in the drawer and wrote a letter home.

We left our bikes part way into the mountains and hiked to the beautiful Spray River. We camped there overnight and marveled at the beauty of it all. Not far from where we stayed that night was a camp for conscientious objections. These were men that said it was against their way of life to be in the military. I couldn't believe that they were given such a beautiful place to be interned.

We came back the next day and continued the tour of the town. I vividly remember a huge stuffed bear. We also went to the hot sulphur springs pool. The water was so hot that you could only stay in it for 15 minutes at a time, or it would weaken you too much.

We then cycled to Calgary and arrived in time to attend the Calgary Stampede, the world's largest rodeo. What a sight _ cowboys and Indians everywhere and all kinds of little stands and side shows. This was, of course, in addition to the rodeo competition itself. The show opener, with the parade of cowboys, Indians, fancy riders, stage coaches, show wagons, roping and shooting stunts, was enough to excite you.

While in Calgary, I got to try something new. In Canada, as in the US, they had one "Meatless Day" each week to help conserve meat to send to the troops overseas. This was during the WW2 in Europe. In Canada, however, you were allowed to have buffalo meat on Meatless Tuesday. I had to try it. It was pretty good and another fond thing to remember about Canada.

We then met our train car and went onto Vancouver, BC. There, we left our train car for the last time. We saw the city, took a boat to Seattle, and began touring south.

At Mt. Rainer, we planned to camp out up on the mountain, but we got caught in a rain storm. There was a visitors' area with large cinderblock restrooms. We stayed in there for the night.

We left Mt. Rainier by regular train, which was prearranged, and headed to Kalmouth Falls, Oregon. This was an Indian reservation. I met an Indian there with a motorcycle, and he took me for a ride that I would never forget. We rode on-road, off-road, and even up and down steps! To put it mildly, he was "as wild as an Indian"! It was fun.

Our tour group decided that we would go to Crater Lake, which was a 15-mile ride up a windy, hilly road. We planned to spend the night there. However, I had a problem with my bike _ a flat tire. So I told the rest of the group to keep going and that I would catch up to them at the top later. It so happened that I was taking up the rear of the group that day, and there were only a few riders around when I got my flat. Well, I fixed the tire, pumped it up, and then went on my way. However, by then, I was quite far behind the group.

On my way up the hill, I saw a car with a family in it. Since they were parked along side the road, I figured they would know how far my group was ahead of me. But I didn't realize that they had been throwing food out to a bear, and he was on the other side of the car on all fours and eating the food. When I parked my bike, I walked up to the father in the driver's seat to talk to him. What happened next took only seconds, and was over as fast as it started.

To this day, I don't know if someone yelled, I just sensed something, or if the bear growled, but here is what happened: Something made me turn around, and I saw the bear on its hind legs taking a swipe at me with its front paw. I jumped back, but his claws still ripped into my leg and gave me a few nasty cuts. Someone opened the back door of the car, and I jumped in, right next to the kids. They slammed the door shut and started to drive away.

We only went a short distance when we saw a park ranger in his pickup. We stopped, and I thanked the people and went over to the ranger. He said that it's a bad thing that people don't pay attention to the "Please don't fee the bears" signs since bears are wild and dangerous animals. He also told me that bad infections can come from bear claw cuts.

We drove back to get my bike and pack, then he drove me down the bottom of the mountain to a restaurant. We went to the back door, and a woman there got a bottle of iodine and alcohol to clean my wounds. She taped them up and said I should be fine. Up until then, I had been so scared that I didn't even feel the pain. But when she cleaned my wounds, I felt it then, and for days later.

(continued in Part 3 - June issue)

Written about his 1942 AYH cycle tour trip, this article was taken from Larry Weiss' upcoming autobiography, Such a Life You Wouldn't Believe It (But It's True). Part 1 was published in the April issue; part 3 will this chapter in the June issue or Columbus Outdoors.