Day 11: Jellicoe Station – Princeton
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Total Distance Travelled: 40KM
Total Distance Travelled Entire Trip: 515KM
Total Time: 4:00
Since I’ve been neglecting posting pictures of my accommodations, here are some photos of Jellicoe station B&B first:
Main Building / Owners House
Guest cabin
View of Chain Lake from the B&B
Back to the trail, even though I only had 40K to bike progress was slow due to the sandy surface of the trail. Osprey Lake is the summit of the pass which I passed late yesterday, so it’s a straight descent into Princeton. The grade is around 1% down for most of the way though, which doesn’t provide much benefit with the poor trail.
Agricultural land soon appears as the KVR is up on the side of the valley:
Agriculture
Another impressive trestle takes the trail over Spukunne creek:
trestle
Another valley view
As you descend into Jura (a city near Princeton), the landscape changes drastically. It goes from dense trees to dry and arid grass land due to the rain shadow of the mountains.
Starting to get into grass land
Big sky country
Once the landscape opens up, you can really feel the wind blasting across the plains which slowed my descent a bit. At the same time as the KVR approaches Princeton, the grade becomes -2% and the trail quality improves. To even manage a 2% grade, the KVR does a Z shaped descent on the mountains above Princeton which ends up criss crossing the highway multiple times.
I ended up arriving in Princeton around 3, and I had hoped the Princeton museum would be open – but sadly they are only open a couple days a week this time of year. Instead I grabbed a blizzard at the nearby Dairy Queen and took a look around town. On the trail Princeton has a CPR caboose and a round house:
Round house and caboose
Princeton is the last bit of civilization before Hope, my next two accommodations don’t have any food available (or sheets in one case) so this is my last chance to stock up on supplies for a while. Tomorrow I’m off on a short day to Coalmont, but because the trail is blocked off I will be forced to detour on the highway.