Golden sits in the Columbia Valley at the meeting of the Kicking Horse and Columbia rivers, in the shadow of two great ranges, the Rockies on the east and the Purcells and Selkirks on the south and west. The town is small, about four thousand people, but it is the largest settlement for a hundred kilometres in any direction, and it acts as a hub for riders on the Trans-Canada Highway. It has been a railway town since the 1880s, when the Canadian Pacific Railway came through the Kicking Horse Pass, and it still has the feel of a place where trains are part of the landscape, with long freights rumbling through the valley day and night.
The approach from the east is a descent of the Kicking Horse Canyon, a narrow gorge that the highway has fought for decades. The road has been rebuilt in stages, with a new four-lane section completed in 2024, and the route from Field to Golden still drops steeply and winds along the river. The mountains close in on both sides, the river thunders below and the road shows its grade, so check your brakes. The ride south and west along the Columbia Valley is gentler, with wide bends and views of wetlands.
The Columbia Valley wetlands, to the south, form one of the longest intact wetlands in North America, a flat sprawl of marsh and channels that carries more than two hundred species of birds, and it is an important stop for migrating geese and cranes. On the mountain above the town, a ski resort has a grizzly bear refuge, where orphaned bears are kept in a large enclosure, and the gondola in summer gives a view over the valley. A long timber-frame pedestrian bridge crosses the Kicking Horse River in the town, and a sky bridge, high over a canyon, is a newer attraction.
Golden has all the services a rider needs: fuel stations, supermarkets, motels, breweries and cafes, and it is a natural place to end a day's ride. The weather is changeable. Summers are warm, but thunderstorms can roll in off the peaks, and winter brings heavy snow and cold. Bears, elk and bighorn sheep are common along the highway, and cattle also graze in places. Spring and autumn are quiet, and the larches turn gold in the mountains in late September.