Good Bye to Alberta & Canadian Rockies

Headed back towards Lake Louise to catch Canada Hwy 1 to the west and drive through several of Canada's smaller national parks, Yoho, Glacier (Canadas version) and Mt. Revelstoke. Started with gray skies, and even a bit of rain!

One of our first stops was to get a glimpse of one of the transportation solutions to living in the Rockies. All the railroads and vehicular roads are constantly dealing with mountainous grades, freezing snow and avalanches. To minimize grades by extending the rail line, the railroad company had spiral tunnels, two of them, that literally are big 360 degree spirals carved into the mountain. But as with spirals the elevation also changes. So you can literally see a train enter a tunnel, and reappear coming out of a tunnel above the tunnel it went into. And we did! We just happened to be at the overlook when a train entered the tunnel....and we saw it come out about the tunnel that it wad still going through. (If confused, I will try to show you picture when home) it just really wad kind of intriguing to see.

Continued through Yoho to a rest area where we left our RV and jumped into the Hibbs truck camper to drive to Takakkaw Falls. Shared a ride because only vehicles under 24' were allowed on the road due to the really tight swithbacks. By now the weather had really started to clear up with bright blue skies and sunshine. The Falls were awesome. Not the gorge falls we have been viewing, but a big cascading drop.
Nice short trail along the river, bridge crossing and short walk to the base. Beautiful, big, and powerful. Just a stream out of the cliff face. Lots of pics!

Back down the hill and picked up our vehicle to move on to Emerald lake. Hibbs got there first and had us all pass on viewing the lake. It was so busy they couldn't find parking for the truck. We all felt we had seen the best of the lakes with our stops at Louise and Moraine that we didn't even mind....too much.

Quick stop at Natural Bridge, which is pretty much that...a rock formation that has been carved by the river so that it actually forms a bridge. Pretty interesting, but again very crowded.

Drove to the little town of Field and parked at the visitor center and made lunch. Enjoyed the quiet and the sun at a picnic table, and shared bits of lunch with the of magpies (?), I think!

We all headed out towards Revelstoke, driving through Glacier National Park. Not alot of stops, but the drive is breathtaking. The mountains are huge, rocky and very vertical. Glaciers, bits of snow fields, and over a dozen snow/avalanche sheds built for protection. These passes through the Rockies are difficult to maintain, but imagine locating and building them!

Another quick stop at Roger's Pass and their visitor center. Good topo models to help get a feel for the pass. One last stop at the Hemlock Grove, an old growth forest in a location that is essentially a temperate rainforest, similar to the Red Cedar one we visited a couple of weeks ago. Not sure I had seen a hemlock before, very flat needles.

Finally pulled into Revelstoke, campsite was just on edge of town at nice little lake, Williamson Lake. Very family oriented, pretty small sites, and we are just beginning to feel a little summer weather. Cool evenings, so sleeping is great!Read more