Just as bright and early as we needed to be for the train,
we had to have our bags out at the Jasper Park Lodge. They would accompany us in
the buses to Lake Louise and then on to Banff. We know from our last trip out
here, a mere 27 years ago, that the Icefield Parkway between Jasper and Banff
is some of the most picturesque driving in the country, so we were prepared to
take lots of photos at our stops. So we hope nobody is disappointed that this
posting will be mostly photos. So, here
we go:
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| The Rocky Mountaineer at Jasper Station. A long train heading back down to Kamloops. |
On the way:
Tangle Falls:
One of the must-dos in the area is the Athabasca Glacier,
where you are driven in an oversized Snow-Bus out onto the glacier for a chance
to experience it first-hand. Most people wondered if it would be like a sheet
of ice; even though it was more like snow on top, some areas were fairly
slippery if you weren't wearing boots, and it didn't take long for the cold to
creep up through the soles of your shoes. It was a fun adventure nonetheless.
We had also done this excursion when we were here those 27 years ago, and it
was shocking to see how far the glacier had receded since then. We were driven
quite a ways further up the glacier; where we had boarded the Snow-Bus before
is now a parking lot and not very close to the glacier at all.
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| OMG! They were both here!! |
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| One of the little melted pools on the glacier. Looks very cold! Some people were collecting plastic cups of water and tasting it, but there's lots of dust and dirt that can get washed into the water now. |
Along the highway:
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| The Weeping Wall, where there is always some water seeping down the rock face |
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| The Sunwapta River |
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| The Angel Glacier, on back side of Mount Edith Cavell |
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| The view from our lunch stop. It just looked so fitting with the flag and the mountain beyond, |
Peyto Lake:
Bow Lake
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| Larry with Olivia and Jack, fellow Mountaineers and new friends. |
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| Simpson's Num-Ti-Ja Lodge.The lodge has been around since the mid-1800s as a rest stop for horseback and horsedrawn travellers. It is still owned by the Simpson family. |
As were were motoring along the highway, we noticed a couple
of cars at the side of the road and all of us looked to see what the attraction
was. It turned out to be a large Black Bear foraging in the trees near the
road. Our driver stopped as quickly as he could and even managed to reverse
back a little so we could all get a look. Of course, there had to be a couple
of young women get out of their car for a closer look - doesn't everyone do
that with a wild bear 30 feet away??? Eventually he must have realized he was
the centre of attention because he turned and lumbered back into the woods.
Lake Louise:
When we arrived at the Chateau Lake Louise, we were advised
that we had been given an upgrade into the Gold Level, where the rooms have the
best views and there is a private lounge serving canapes and breakfast. Wow! If
it were to happen anywhere, this was a good place. The room and the view
certainly didn't disappoint.
Dinner at the Walliser Stube, a Swiss-style restaurant in the hotel. Cheese fondue, Chateaubriand and Chocolate fondue for dessert.
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| This was the view at 8:00 in the morning. Never thought we could get a photo like this! Then one of our travel mates showed us one he had take at 6:30 with the orange and pink shades of sunrise in the clouds reflected in the lake. He could sell that one!! |
The Drive to Banff
There is an interesting story to the Spiral Tunnels outside
of Banff. The Canadian Pacific Railway needed to set rails to get down the Big
Hill with a 4.5 grade, that means for every 100 feet in horizontal distance,
the elevation drops 4.5 feet. That's pretty steep. They built it anyway in
1884, and found that they had trouble keeping trains on the track by the time
they reached the bottom, as they were going too fast to stop. As an
alternative, in 1907 they started building an ingenious tunnel system through 2
mountains; essentially a figure 8, the first loop in Cathedral Mountain and the
second in Mount Ogden. From the Spiral Tunnel viewpoint you can see the train,
if it is long enough, in 3 places at once: going into Cathedral Mountain,
coming out of the first spiral ABOVE where it went in, and then along in front
of the viewpoint as it heads toward Mount Ogden and the second spiral.
Ultimately this reduced the grade to 2.1%, quite safe for trains. A good thing,
too, as we will be going through the Spiral Tunnels once we leave Banff. The
Rocky Mountaineer is the only passenger train to use this track.
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| In this picture you can just see the train's engine coming back out of the tunnel at the top |
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| Here you see the train crossing itself. If we could have got the photo, we could also have seen it cross along below us. |
Emerald Lake:
The Natural Bridge:
We finally reached the Banff Springs Hotel around 5:00.
We've seen the hotel from afar and, of course, seen photos, but it is a lot
larger than it looks. We weren't lucky enough to be upgraded this time since
the hotel was full for the weekend. Oh, well. We had dinner in the German/Swiss
restaurant (no fondue this time) last night and, for a real change of pace,
will be having Italian tonight. We took a walk along the Bow River and through
town this morning.
Bow Falls:
The Bow River as we crossed the footbridge into town:
Back to the train tomorrow. We'll see what kind of sights
there are on the way to Kamloops.
