June 23 - to detour or not to detour - Jasper here we come!

As we were preparing to leave this morning for our 800 mile detour, the campground owner came out with good news! He knew our plans so he wanted us to know we didn’t have to go that way, the road (Canadian Hwy 1) over the mountain from Golden to Lake Louise in Banff was open. We were so thrilled to not have to make that detour drive!!  Hurray!!!!

 Leaving Golden, driving east, you go through Yoho National Park, on the way to Banff. Yoho, named for a Cree word expressing awe, is a park of rock walls, waterfalls and glacial lakes. It's a park with snow-topped mountain peaks, roaring rivers and silent forests. It's a park whose history is bound up with a railroad: spiral tunnels inside mountains and stories of runaway trains.   

On our way into the park, we passed what we thought was a statue of a Big Horn Sheep, right on the side of the road. But, as we passed, it moved its head! It was real and we missed an opportunity for a picture!

 About half way up the mountain pass, was a view point for the railroad tunnels built into the mountain. When the rail first came to this area, the tracks went straight down the mountain and there was a high rate of accidents because of the sharp descent of the mountain grade. Long story short, they hired an engineer to look at the problem and his solution was a "crazy eight" tunnel, built into the mountain so that the descent could be made at a safer degree of grade and speed. Yoho is nearly solid rock so the tunnels are a marvel of engineering!  Here is the entrance to one:

Yoho is in British Columbia and borders Banff National Park on the east, which is in Alberta. In Banff we could get as far as Lake Louise and no farther as the roads are still closed due to flooding and mudslides. We ate lunch in the shopping center of Lake Louise Village, then drove the rigs up to the lake.


 A short hike from the parking lot and WOW!! Lake Louise is a picture perfect lake surrounded by towering mountains topped with massive glaciers. I have never seen anything so dramatically stunning! The only thing ruining this beautiful spot is the gigantic monstrosity of a hotel that boasts over 500 rooms.  One look at the lake and I was trying to figure out how we could take the kayak out on it. 

There is a small boat house over to the left and they rent canoes, Nita don’t even want to go near this place, but Phil, John and I head that direction.  We learned there was a guided boat tour leaving right away, and I was all for it.  Nita  swore she wouldn’t get into another canoe after the disaster in Nebraska.   But she agrees to go with us. Turns out, our “boat” is a large canoe that will seat 7-8 people. Phil is asking questions about how easy is it to roll this thing and the guide, Bruce, is telling him that we won’t be swimming. So, next thing we know is that we're putting on  life vests and we are getting lessons on how to paddle a canoe effectively, and how to get into this “boat” so it doesn’t tip over.  I think Nita was really to kill me at this point.



We managed to get into the thing without tipping it over, Phil is in the front, making him the captain, and he sets the rowing rhythm. Nita is really laughing at this, because she says he is the king of no rhythm!! John and I are directly behind Phil, then another couple from Quebec who barely speak English, then Nita, with Bruce behind her. And then we are off for our tour of the lake and our history lesson of the Hudson Bay Company and the canoes that delivered supplies to the fur trading outposts and then brought the furs back to the east coast for shipment to England.

Phil is taking the picture over his head so all you see is his hat

The lake was fairly calm, so it didn’t really take long to reach the turning around point and head back towards the hotel on the other side of the lake. This side has a walking trail and we become the “tourist attraction” as we paddled our little boat and sang rowing songs led by Bruce. This water is mostly snow melt and is freezing cold, but there are 4 or 5 guys practicing for a polar bear plunge (in their underwear!), and I’m wondering just how much these dudes have had to drink!!

We managed to get back to the dock, and per instructions from Bruce, managed to stop the canoe and back it into the dock, just like we were pros!! Safely back on land, we headed for the rigs to continue our journey up to the Ice Fields where we had planned to spend the night.

Along the way, we stopped in a few view points, the most spectacular to me was Bridal Veil Falls, not only because of the view of the falls, but the valley we had just driven through, really impressive!!

Bridal Veil Falls

We finally pulled into the Columbia Ice Fields parking lot where we paid $16.00 for the privilege of ‘camping’ in their lot for the night. We are dry camping, which means we have no electricity, water or sewer. John and I are used to this, but Phil and Nita are not really set up for it. Phil tried to wire in 12 volt plugs for their C-Pap machines, but that didn’t work, so they used a small battery pack charger for them.  It worked great and they said they slept like babies.  They must have as we could not raise them on the radio in the morning and went up to the lodge and had breakfast waiting for them to get up!!!!

July 22 Golden, BC

We drove into Golden this morning to take the Kicking Horse Resort Gondola up to the top of the mountain. It was drizzly and cool when we got on the Gondola and raining when we got to the top. We had reservations at the restaurant at the top of the mountain so we went in to eat. Lunch was included in the ride to the top and was pretty good. While we were eating, the clouds started to clear and the sun came out.

 The views from the top of the mountain were stunning! Just to the north west of the Kicking Horse property was the boundary for Glacier National Park, so we were seeing a part of the park that we couldn’t see from the road when we drove through a couple of days ago. From the top we could see to the town of Golden in the valley below, as well as the river valley on the other side of the mountain.

 During the winter this mountain is a hive of activity for skiers, snowboarding and other winter sports. At this time of year the paths are full of mountain bikers and hikers and the skies are colorful with paragliders. We watched some of the bikers take off down the mountain, the beginning of the trail is a steep downhill slope and by the time they reached the actual trail they were going pretty fast! The restaurant was at an altitude of 7700’, the bottom, where we got on the gondola is 3900’! That’s an adrenalin filled ride!! Not even when I was younger would I have attempted that.  Just going up in the Gondola was scary enough.  I only screamed part of the way though,  LOL.

Here is Grandpop being silly with a full size wood sculpture of the bear we did not see:

When we got back to the rig, we discovered that we forgot to close one of the overhead cabinets.  Look where we found Keys:

That night there was a beautiful sunset that turned the mountain red:

July 21 Day of rest

Because of the flooding problems, we have decided to stay in Donald for another couple of days to see if maybe the roads will reopen. So, today was a kind of lazy day, cleaned house, did laundry and basically took it easy.

June 20, Canadian Glacier National Park

Got up early this morning and headed for the Canadian Glacier National Park. Clouds and a light drizzle most of the day, along with fog or low lying clouds over the peaks of the mountains. There is also some snow still left on the peaks, covering the actual glaciers, but not to worry, the park was beautiful! We stopped a couple of times to do some short hikes through the forest.

The first hike was through the Giant Cedars of Glacier. This was an easy walk as it was all boardwalks with gentle steps through a Jurassic Park or rain forest sort of feeling. Peaceful and beautiful at the same time, not a combination you find often. The old trees are left where they fall so that they can replenish the forest floor and supply nutrients for the younger trees. The ground is covered with leafy ferns and their light green color against the reds of the rotting trees is quite a contrast and high above is the ever green canopy of the giant cedars.

The visitor’s center to the park was open and we stopped, but the gift shop was not open yet, neither was the hotel next door, once again we were too early, the summer season stops were not open yet. This time it worked to our advantage, as everything we stopped at was suppose to be charged for through Parks Canada, and we had all forgotten our passes. Ours is now in the car!!

Revelstoke National Park is about 16 km’s past Glacier, so we continued driving. Revelstoke’s landscape is much like Glacier’s, beautiful valley’s sandwiched by tall peaks covered with snow and glaciers. Just outside of the park is the city of Revelstoke where we gassed up, got some groceries and made a stop at Tim Horton’s donut shop before heading back home.

When we were at the visitor center in Glacier we found out that the south west part of Alberta had received a lot of rain overnight and that they were having trouble with flooding in Calgary and that there had been roads washed out or blocked with mud slides on the way to Banff National Park. The very same roads we are suppose to take to get to the park tomorrow.  YIKES!! The visitor center at Revelstoke told us the same thing, so it’s not looking good for our visit to Banff. After we got back home, we got a local channel to come in and boy what a mess! Not only are roads washed away, but so are bridges and the land they are anchored on! Don’t think this is going to be a simple fix, so we are studying the maps looking for an alternate route.

At this time, the Calgary Stampede site is completely flooded out as well and they aren’t sure if they will be able to get it ready in time or not. The Stampede is an important event to the economy of Calgary, so I’m sure they will do everything possible to get it cleaned up. We are supposed to go in on the 3^rd of July, so we’ll see.

June 18 Golden, BC

Started the day with a 3 hour horse back ride on Kicking Horse Mountain.  It was just me and the guide.  It was a fantastic ride up and down hills and across streams.

 
I look like I weight about 350 pounds in this picture.  It was so cold that morning that I had on a t-shirt, sweat shirt, a vest, and my jacket!  By the end of the ride it was so warm I had to take them all off!

Although they were offering horse back rides, we are early for the summer season; things don’t start kicking around here until after the next weekend. That’s a little disappointing because we wanted to ride the Gondola up to the top of the mountain where there is a restaurant and the views are suppose to be fantastic!

So, we walked through a little of the historical section and then had a late lunch out on the patio overlooking the Kicking Horse River. The most outstanding thing we saw in Golden was the pedestrian bridge over the Kicking Horse River. During the bleak days of 9/11 the entire community of Golden, along with other volunteers joined forces and built this bridge, completely of wood. The bridge is the longest free standing timber framed bridge in Canada, spanning 151’. The bridge weighs about 210,000 pounds and was constructed of 72,000 board feet of Douglas-Fir timbers.

The bridge connects the Rotary walking/biking trails that surround the town, and at one end of the bridge is a lovely pavilion bursting with the color of spring flowers, which is also carried out into the town where there are baskets full of flowers and beautiful gardens all over town. 

June 17 - on our way to Golden, BC

We left Ft Steele this morning around 11:00am, heading north on Highway 93, which for the most part travels through several valleys sandwiched between snow capped mountains on the east and west. Several glacier fed rivers wind their way through these valley’s, coming and going, merging and splitting. Wetlands abound and are preserved, providing shelter for a variety of wildlife. There are several herds of Big Horn Sheep, Elk, Deer and Bears, although we didn't see any of them today.

Highway 93 eventually branched off and headed for Banff National Park and we continued north on Highway 95. Tonight we are camped at the Campers Haven RV Park in Donald, BC, about 25 kilometers north of Golden. The campground has views of the snow capped peaks of Canada’s Glacier Park to the west and Yoho National Park on the east, all of which we want to explore. We are looking forward to our time here.

Golden is open all year to tourist and looks like a fun town to explore. You can do it all here! On Kicking Horse Mountain, as near as I can tell from the map, there are about 126 different ski slopes and several lifts to get you there. The highest peak is at 8,033’ and there is a ski slope from the top of that. Yikes!!


During this time of the year there is river rafting, mountain biking, hiking and horseback riding to name a few. 

6/16 Fort Steele

Slept in this morning and that felt really good!
 The thing to see in this area is the Fort Steele Heritage Town, which just happens to be right across the highway from the RV Park.
 The origin of Fort Steele is closely linked to the discovery of gold on nearby Wild Horse Creek in the 1860’s. As more people arrived, tensions mounted between the First Nation tribe of the Ktunaxa and the settlers. Superintendent Samuel B. Steele and 75 members of the North West Mounted Police were sent to resolve the problems, and they established the first post west of the Rockies. This post was later to become Ft Steele.

Today, the Heritage Town represents a typical turn of the century town. Over 60 buildings and structures have been restored and reconstructed since the site was designated a heritage property in 1961. There are several shops, such as the leather and blacksmith shops where demonstrations of how things were done in the 1890’s are given. You can take a wagon ride, or ride on the train, powered by an 1890’s steam engine.

Look how the kids got to school: