The fifth day of our tour started off at a leisurely pace as we left the hostel at 10am after a breakfast consisting of ramen and canned sardines.

After dropping by the local IGA for some fruits and Powerade, we decided to check out the many bicycle stores around town to see if they could replace Dave's cracked rim. Although Golden is a relatively small town of under 4000, it's home to at least 3 bicycle shops due to it's mountain bike park across from town.

After visiting 2 different shops, we eventually settled with Summit Cycle because the owner told us he could start relacing the wheel right away. By 12:00, Dave's rim was relaced with a new Mavic rim for a very reasonable price of around $60 including the $40 rim ! Try getting that done in Calgary and you'd be waiting for 2 weeks and paying through the nose ! Wow !

The shop owner at Summit Cycle indicated that the toughest part of our day would be getting out of Golden and he was absolutely right ! The Trans Canada highway out of Golden was very steep and had almost no shoulder !

Here I am on day 5 with the yellow jersey ! Woohoo ! Kicking Horse ski resort can be seen in the distance while the town of Golden looms nearby.

Here's a typical view of the road out of Golden. It's steep and just when you think it's over, you round a turn and see some more steep road... and then the shoulder dissapears.

Just when we thought it couldn't get worse, we encountered some heavy construction.

We found it humourous how there were tons of signs on the road which said, "For your own safety please stay inside your car". Oh well, at least we had our helmets.

The construction eventually ended and around 5km later, we finally entered Yoho National park ! Yahoo ! Yoho !

As you can see, we still had great weather as the temperatures hovered around 25C or so.

The huge pyramid in the distance is Mount Carnavorn. Emerald Lake is nestled somewhere up in that area.

Seeing these peaks gave me a sense of comfort since I knew I was approaching the town of Field... where we'd have a quick break.

After a quick break where I consumed some Mountain Dew energy drink, it was time to conquer the highest point along the Trans Canada highway - Kicking Horse Pass.

Dave shook his head in disbelief after I told him about this pass. He was just getting over the trauma from the escape from Golden.

To his credit, he always had a great attitude regarding the hardships of this trip. Whenever I told him about the passes and distances, he'd simply smile at me and say, "Ken !!! This is my vacation !!!".

The climb to Kicking Horse Pass was no walk in the park but it was much easier than the climb we did earlier that day. It was over a longer distance and the shoulder was fairly wide.

We took a quick break to observe the spiral train tracks before moving on.

I was so happy to see this sign ! It meant that the uphill was over and it also meant we were closing in on Lake Louise.

For the rest of the trip, we'd remain in the province of Alberta.

We eventually strolled into the Lake Louise hostel at around 8pm. To my surprise, it cost us $37 per night !!! (And yes, we're both members of HI.) I guess they can charge whatever they want since it's either them or the campground when it comes to cheap accomodations in Lake Louise.

After checking into our rooms, we were too exhausted to ride the huge uphills to Lake Louise so we decided to grab some dinner.

A week prior to this trip as I was riding the Brewster bus from Jasper to Calgary, I overheard a conversation between two Japanese tour guides. Here's a rough translation :

Guide #1 : I'm taking some clients to Lake Louise. I should take them for a 'Post Burger right ?

Guide #2 : What kind of a ridiculous question is that you stupid moron ? Of course you take them for a 'Post Burger !

Ok... maybe it didn't go like that but my Japanese is kinda rusty.

In any event, I had this burger in mind for the previous week as I dragged Dave into the Post Hotel. We eventually strolled into the fine diner as a member of the restaurant staff (dressed in a suit and tie) came over, looked us up and down and said in a French accent, "You must be looking for the puubbbb."

So we were off to the Outpost pub.

So here it is ! The outpost burger with bacon and cheese !

So how was it ? Well, I found the burger to be above average but not exactly mind shattering. At least it was obvious that they didn't use a frozen beef patty for the burger.

On the other hand, they must have rolled each french fry in salt after it came out of the fryer. Ugh !