Tag Archives: Rocky Mountains

Rocky Mountain Hire Car

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Tuesday 6 September 2022 – We had a simple task today: transfer from Banff to our next hotel, the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, some 38 miles away along the Trans-Canada Highway.  Mode of transport – hire car; Google maps estimates the journey time as just a smidge under three quarters of an hour.

It took us all day. It included some two hours of walking. Obviously.

This is not, I should say, because we had any significant problems, although the guys at Avis increased the  chaos level of the start by initially handing us the keys to The Wrong Car; it was because Jane found us Interesting Things To Do On The Way.  The combination of Jane’s organisational skills and Google Maps’ dispensing of local knowledge is truly a thing to wonder at.

So, no, we didn’t drive directly the Lake Louise and sink gratefully into a hot bath or a cold cocktail.  We wouldn’t even have started out on the Trans-Canada Highway (Highway 1) had a section of the alternative Bow Falls Parkway (Highway 1A) not been closed.  However, closed it was, so we took Highway 1 until the relevant exit and backtracked in order to get to our first Interesting Thing To Do – Johnston Canyon.

Almost immediately we left the main road, a photo opportunity arose around a bridge, a river and a mountain.

The bridge has no name and is simply in a photogenic location rather than being itself a thing of beauty; but it does have an osprey’s nest in it.  The river is the Bow River, whose eponymous Falls we had seen in Banff and which was still a very fetching shade of glacial blue. The mountain is Castle Mountain, which you may recognise (because you have been paying attention, haven’t you?)  from photos from different viewpoints in previous blogs. It was once renamed Eisenhower mountain in recognition of the enduring legacy of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s impact on North America.  Reportedly, he was such a humble man that he never really saw the need for this recognition; and in any case there was something of a backlash from the locals who hadn’t been consulted on the name change. So its original name was restored, but the peak on the right hand side is called Eisenhower Peak.

This was the first digression, but we were soon at the attraction which Jane had planned we should visit.

(I find the French naming of these things amusing.) This canyon features a largely paved walkway beside the river which carved it out in the first place

and shows its glacial origins by its colour.  The walkway leads to Lower Falls and Upper Falls, and is a popular family day out – the walkway was quite, but not intolerably, congested. (We had to park in the overflow car park, which was about a quarter full. Gawd alone knows how packed the walkway would have been on a busy day.)

There is a bridge over the Lower Falls which leads to a small cavern giving a special viewpoint but which can only accommodate about two people at a time; this was obviously a popular activity, with a slow-moving queue.

We took a look at the falls, which are very attractive, although any Icelander would look at this and think (in Icelandic) “Hah! Making a foss about that?” *

We couldn’t be bothered to investigate the possibilities offered by the small cavern, so headed towards the Upper Falls.

Not very far, as it happens. The route thither was closed for “construction work”.  Never mind, we enjoyed the digression overall.

The overflow car park I mentioned had decent washroom facilities

which I schoolboyishly decided meant you could only pee on the left and poo on the right.

Our continuing journey took us back on to the main Highway 1, which rather nicely features wildlife corridors every 10 km or so, enabling animals to cross safely.

The scenery was quite striking, with lumpy bits and glaciers becoming more common.

Our next Interesting Thing To Do was, indeed, very interesting indeed; something that Jane had learned about on the Rocky Mountaineer whilst I was absent taking photos out of earshot of the commentary – the Spiral Tunnels.  Near a town called Field are two tunnels, completed in 1909, which twist trains back on themselves as a way of enabling transit without an unacceptably steep gradient – the steeper gradient had been tried but fatal derailments and runaway trains rendered a different solution necessary.  The link above explains how the tunnels work, but the practical upshot is that a train going through the lower tunnel twists back such that you can see it both coming and going, as it were.  We were fortunate that a long freight train was indeed going through it as we passed, so I tried to convey what goes on with a video.

The carriages barely visible through the trees in the foreground are towards the rear of the train; the middle of the train can be seen entering the tunnel in the background; and in the middle is the front of the train, having gone through the tunnel and turned through 270° before exiting, so now apparently moving in the opposite direction to the other parts.

Helpfully, there is an information board

and a model.

I hope that’s clear, then?

Field itself, although an unprepossessing town, is noteworthy for its proximity to the Burgess Shale – fossil formation containing remarkably detailed traces of soft-bodied biota of the Middle Cambrian Epoch (520 to 512 million years ago), and presumably discovered by an archeologist on a Field trip.  Thank you.  Thank you for reading my joke.

Our next stop was at a thing called the Natural Bridge.  I had no idea what this translates to, but it sounded intriguing and there were signposts, which made it easy to find and gives it credibility as an Interesting Thing To Do (ITTD).  Near it, Jane found a signpost which amused her.

I should point out that part of the Burgess Shale is the Mount Stephen Trilobite Fossil Bed. So, there.

The Natural Bridge is quite a sight (and sound).

and the colour of the water shows that it’s glacial in origin, although the silt level is very high, giving it a grey, milky appearance.

Google Maps asserts that there are Lower Falls a short way along a trail, and indeed there are, but getting a decent photo of them required determination, courage and mountaineering equipment.  Jane clung on to a tree whilst hanging out over a chasm to bring you this image

which is not at all bad, but it doesn’t do it real justice.  No matter; we had seen what a Natural Bridge looks like.

Our route to our final ITTD went by some more striking scenery.

(The Rocky Mountains really does this sort of thing rather well, wouldn’t you say?)

Paula and Sandrine, friends we had met at Farewell Harbour Lodge, had told us that their itinerary included staying at the Emerald Lake Lodge, and this sounds like it has definite possibilities as an ITTD, so we headed there.  Its ITTD cred was boosted by a car park full to bursting, so we had to park half a mile away along the side of the road.  As we walked towards it, I was wondering what we might see, when, through the trees I glimpsed something that gave me a bit of a clue.

It’s a lake whose glacial waters give it a green colour

although Jane asserts that it’s more turquoise than emerald, and who am I to argue? Anyway, the lake is very scenic; beside it is the Lodge, which consists of some equally photogenic accommodation.

Here are some more of the lakeside scenes.  I’m particularly fond of the last image.

The Emerald Lake was the last on today’s ITTD list, and anyway it was past earliest check-in time at the hotel, the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, so we headed there next.  Everything about it is huge

including the queue for someone to park your car for you – I wasn’t going to try it for fear of getting lost for days in the underground car park.

That’s how a 38 mile car journey can take all day and involve walking for a couple of hours.

Having heard that everything gets booked up here, we had in advance booked an early dinner in the Lakeview Lounge, which is quite aptly named.

and we enjoyed a very decent dinner which would have been dietetically blameless except for the gins.  But it was Gunpowder gin, which we’d first tasted through the good offices of friends, and so it would have been rude not to indulge ourselves.

After such an active and Interesting day, one might have thought we would retire quietly to our room and take things gently for the evening.  So we went for a walk. Obviously.  Well, the lakeside looked so pretty, we couldn’t resist.  And it was very scenic, walking along the north shore of the lake taking photos as the sun set.  The light was very interesting at times

and we managed to avoid the crowds of people who imagine that their presence in a photo improves the scene – there were a lot of these.

The hotel itself provides some nice framing opportunities

but the walk along the north shore, in dead calm conditions gave some lovely images.

And so, as the light finally faded

it was time for bed, as we had to set the alarm for 0500 in order not to miss tomorrow’s first ITTD.  You’ll have to come back tomorrow to find out what that was…..see you then.

*Foss is Icelandic for waterfall.

Rocky Mountain – Higher

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Monday 5 September 2022 – We only had one item on the plan for the day, which was to travel on the Banff Gondola. The bottom station is a little way outside town, but there’s a shuttle bus and a kind soul at the hotel reception had provided us with passes that meant we could travel there for free. The bus stop was conveniently directly outside the hotel; we climbed aboard and were wafted electrically through the town and out the other side to Sulphur Mountain. The last hundred metres or so were rather slow, the reason being traffic congestion for this popular attraction, but we arrived well before our appointed departure time, wondering how they were going to manage the logistics.

As it happens, they didn’t. The queue for those who had tickets (we did) was very short

and they were happy to let us through early. I infer that the “departure time” idea is simply a matter of attempting to manage the flow of punters; there are ticket desks beside the entry queue and if it becomes popular, I suppose that ad hoc ticket purchasers will be given a later time and simply have to wait to board.

The setup is very familiar to anyone who has ridden a gondola elsewhere in the world. The Banff setup has 40 cabins each of which can seat up to four people; the cabins come round slowly to make it easy to board and then, once aboard, they whoosh down a rail to get up to cable speed and off you go. The only difference from other gondolas I have ridden was that the cabins were manhandled around (mostly by Australians, it seemed) at top and bottom instead of being moved along by machinery.

The ride up is fast and smooth, and small open windows allowed me to poke a lens out and get some nice photos of downtown Banff as we were whisked upwards.

If you know where to look (top right) you can even see our hotel.

The top station is a very substantial 4-level building, offering coffee stops, a restaurant, a patio/observation deck and

a gift shop. Your exit on to the observation deck is greeted by a grizzly bear statue.

The observation deck is understandably popular

and the view from the top is wonderful, as one might expect.

There is a one km boardwalk leading to an adjacent peak

which has 83 steps down and 296 steps up; from that peak you also get some great views, including back to the top station itself.

On the walk over, we were joined by some wildlife which didn’t seem to mind humans much at all.

I’m not sure what the first bird is (maybe a Black-Capped Chickadee), but the second is a Grey or Canada Jay, unofficially Canada’s National Bird.

We also think we saw a Clark’s Nutcracker, which we’d learned about yesterday with Geoff. It has a fascinating partnership with the Whitebark Pine; it has learned how to eat the seeds from the tree’s pine cones – even to the extent of developing a special sublingual pouch where it can store dozens of seeds – and in a mast year there are too many seeds for the bird to eat, so the uneaten ones germinate and the trees spread. Much like the relationship between our Jay and Oak trees in the UK…

There was some great light playing across the views to bolster my photographic day.

After a short while and a coffee break, we headed down again. As we went, I wondered where this gondola fitted in to the skiing setup of Banff. From later research, the only conclusion I can come to is “not at all”; there are no obvious pistes leading down from the top station – just a walking trail for those of a hardy disposition – and all the ski maps I can find for Banff are of other places. So the Banff Gondola is not a skiing installation, but a tourist attraction. This explains the gift shops at top and bottom, which are rare in my experience of European ski lifts.

Back at the bottom, we caught the shuttle towards town, but got off a few stops early to have a look at the Cascade Gardens. These surround the National Parks administration building, itself quite an imposing edifice

from which decent views back over the town are available.

The gardens were originally developed in the 1930s and have since attracted some investment from China, which makes them popular with Chinese visitors, of which there are plenty. To get the photo above, I had to quickly dash in to the viewpoint where there is a perpetual queue of people taking photos of each other.

This urge to believe that an image of some pretty or impressive place can be improved by having oneself in it is something that I find difficult not to get enraged about, but then I’m just a grumpy old man. People doing selfies made it difficult to get decent pictures of the rest of the gardens, but we persevered and got one or two.

After the gardens, it was getting towards time for our late lunch, or, as they call it here, “dinner”. We dropped in to the rental place whence we should pick up a car tomorrow to chat, but there was no-one there except a customer sitting on the floor awaiting the return of staff with a car for him. To pass the time we set out to wander about a bit and ended up heading towards the Banff City Sign. This is A Thing, apparently – we’d had someone ask us where it was the day before, so we thought it might be worth going to. We did get there, and saw that it was crowded with people getting their photo beside it,

so I simply got a photo of the “ffnaB” sign and we turned back towards the town. There was still some great light on the mountainous backdrop to town buildings.

The chat with the car hire desk chappie was very brief as he was still dealing with the customer we’d seen earlier, so we just headed to the Maple Leaf restaurant – a recommendation from Geoff the guide – where we were eventually permitted to have a very nice lunch/dinner (delete as your culture dictates). They didn’t start serving food until 5pm, so we had to wait a while, but we bore this burdensome setback with heroic stoicism, a seat outside and a cocktail each.

After the meal we walked back to the hotel and indulged in further wedded bliss, with me writing this blog entry and Jane doing a bit of ironing from yesterday’s laundry, accompanied by Nice Cups Of Tea. Tomorrow we leave Banff for nearby Lake Louise, or at least we will if all goes well at the Avis desk; the journey there is short, which leaves time for some diversions on the way. I believe Jane has a plan for this. Come back tomorrow, and find out if I was right, eh?

Rocky II

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Saturday 3 September 2022 – Timing had not permitted us a chance to experience the delights of Kamloops in person, so here is a photo of it that I found on the wall of our hotel bedroom.

Through sheer effort of will, combined with a certain amount of sleepwalking, we achieved the 0610 rendezvous with the coach that would take us back out to the industrial wasteland where we could board the Rocky Mountaineer for the second part of our journey that would end in Banff.

As the journey started, the scenery was very different from the previous day’s – much more greenery to be seen.

(more Hoodoos to be seen in the above)

and also, since the sparrows were still farting in the gathering dawn outside the coach, we got some nice sun rising photos

as well as some lovely reflections in the waters beside the railway.

The scenery then reverted to being broadly similar to what we’d seen the previous day,

i.e. subject to the same challenges of grabbing a shot between the trees lining the railway track.

We took a latish breakfast, since we were Second Sitting today, and passed a nice hour or so chatting to Judy and Tom, who are from Maui, Hawaii, which sounds a lovely place to live.

There were some moments of variety.  Jane spotted these snow sheds protecting the railway on the far side of the valley from winter avalanches

and I got a shot of some on our side.

And then it was time for lunch.  We passed lunch having a pleasant chat to an Australian couple, Nikki and Mark, from Fingal Bay, some 200km up the coast from Sydney.  At the same time, we were passing some spectacular scenery with some gorgeous colours, so part of the lunch consisted of a game where Mark would spot approaching gaps in the trees and Jane (sitting opposite) would miss them in trying to capture a photo through the window.

After a while, I simply couldn’t resist the lure of getting to the (rather less hot and smelly) open platform to try to capture some of this scenery, but I was a bit too late.  It didn’t, overall, matter, though – see later. I did get some decent photos as we went along, in many cases being still unable to resist the bendy train cliché.

We even saw some evidence of snow, or more likely glaciers, in the distant mountains, although the view was typical Walker “would have been better if it were clearer”.

There were some other nice scenes to capture as we went along, though nothing as arresting as what had rushed by us at lunch time.

Just as I was ruing my failure to take up on the photo opportunities on offer during lunch, as we were nearing Lake Louise and Banff, things really looked up.

The following 30 minutes provided an elegant demonstration of the reasons I no longer do any film photography.  The scenery was really spectacular with photo opportunities rushing past in rapid succession at 60mph.  Had I been using film, I would have missed almost all of them and/or got unsatisfactory images through not being able to quickly review as I went and having to change film rolls every 36 shots.  As it was, I took over 200 pictures in that half an hour.  Most of them were flawed in some way, but some were utterly lovely.  Well, I think so. Here they are, taken from either side of the train on that final rush into Banff.

These were worth letting my gin and tonic go warm for, I can tell you.

Then before we knew it, there we were in Banff and it was time to say goodbye to friends we’d made during the journey – Judy and Tom and Nikki and Mark – and Bonnie (and George) from Toronto, who Jane had had a long chat with whilst I was in photographic ecstasies on the carriage photo platform. It was also time to say goodbye to the four young folk who had worked so hard to keep us fed, watered and organised for the last two days

Stephanie, David, Vivek and Sian.

The transfer from train to hotel was as well-organised as all the other logistical elements of the trip and very soon we were checked in to the Fox Suites in Banff.  We have a couple of days here, with much potential for enjoying ourselves and getting some good photos.  One can’t ask for much more than that, except perhaps to wish that you will come back and take a look at how things unfolded.