Check Mate

I have found myself in a bad situation for travel concerning the weather over several days ahead of me. I have spent multiple hours this morning trying to develop a plan, looking at realistic daily mileages, weather predictions for each area that I am passing through, and have explored all of these routes and destinations using different travel times (either rushing along, or dragging my feet to intercept the best conditions). I can "Fix" some days of travel further down the road by leaving later, but I pay the price up front with multiple days of misery. If I leave NOW, I can avoid those miserable days just ahead of me, but then pay a heavy debt further down the road with still yet multiple days of misery. I will be dealing with cold, wet, and miserable days regardless of what I do, with daily highs only comfortable for short periods of time, daily lows which I will be experiencing on early mornings and later hours of the days of my travel near 40°F, and at higher elevations crossing through the mountains, particularly those areas in the Southern portion of the Yukon, I'm facing temperatures near or below freezing. I've tried, desperately, to come up with a plan that works. I simply cannot win this one.

To make matters worse, I'm sick. I've been sick for two days. Waking up this morning, I found that I was in worse shape than I have been for the whole trip. I think dealing with 6 days of ass-kickings dished out by Mother Nature has finally caught up with me. I could conceivably continue on, but trying to cross through these cold, wet, and windy areas, will only make matters worse. There will be times that I need to camp. While I can manage a night in the cold, I realistically cannot tolerate it for multiple days. It's just not going to happen.

So with that said, I have to make the difficult decision to turn around and head home. It is troubling to come so far without making it to my destination. I can't be too upset about it though, because the simple truth of the matter is that it doesn't make sense to continue the pursuit. At least not right now. It would be costly and miserable, and just not worth it.

So the NEW PLAN is to depart to the West tomorrow morning, ride through Jasper and Banff National Parks, most likely in the rain. Hopefully I can get a few more decent photos, and hopefully I won't have to deal with too much slow-moving tourist traffic. I will then continue East, aiming for an area East of Calgary. From there, I have a realistic two-day journey home, taking me through an additional providence and two additional states. I'm guessing I'll be home sometime Friday the 13th. Great.