Cycling tour in Canada advise required

Nikolay

Hi, next summer I'm planning to ride in Canada, probably from Calgary to Yukon, and back to the south - to Vancouver. My time budget is 1.5-2 months. Does anyone can recommend me what routes worth taking in the area? I'm not from Canada, so additional question is: Shall I buy all the backroad maps, or it is enough to buy a relatively general map and trust signposting on the backroads (backroads maps are pretty expensive, and, of course, don't cover much area). One more question: Do exists maps with campgrounds indicated on them, including facilities in each groundcamp (it is widespread in Europe - then you can choose camping with hot water, or with electrical socket, or situated near river/lake etc.)?
Thanks fellows

LordFishman

Ok now that part of canada is rather remote so you would be best to stick to the main roads as you do NOT want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere and broken down

It is roughly 2325 km to calgary to Whitehorse in the Yukon.

From Calgary take the trans-Canada to Banff national park. It is awesome there with plenty of camping. Just watch out for Bears and it is very busy in the summer. Lot to see and do there.

Ok now you go up the icefields parkway to jasper (note you cant camp i belive between there) and there is really only one town in the middle of that leg. 200k

Now Jasper too has a lot of camping

After that take the Yellowhead for about 800k till you get to Hwy 37 in BC

Then go up 37 till you get to the yukon (700k or so)

Now you will need to be prepared and have to carry enough to go between towns, the distances can be huge. I would read other websites of people who have done such trips

http://broughton.ca/bcakfaq.html has info
http://www.geocities.com/rodgerrealm/rockies.html


Also go in early summer, i was in banff in late august 2001 and it was getting down to 5 deg C at night already. And snow comes, but in the summer you have to deal with black flies etc.