Downtown Banff is quiet at night; I got a great night's sleep. Being on the western side of the time zone the sun arrived latish. But the first rays hitting the snow-covered peaks woke me up. But time was awasting as I had about nine hours of driving ahead of me to get to Vancouver tonight. After a "traditional" Canadian breakfast, which was remarkably like a traditional English breakfast at Bruno's, I was off again. Passing Castle Mountain again, I could see clouds
forming at the crest of the escarpment.
Since it was pretty breezy yesterday when I went to see Lake Louise and this morning there wasn't a breath of air...I thought I would return to get a better photo of the Lake. Glad I did. The water, even ice cold in mid-summer beckoned me to dive in...I resisted however.
Leaving Lake Louise for some reason, I had
it in my head that I would be in Vancouver by lunch...WRONG! The Trans Canada Highway, while well maintained wound around and around every peak along the way. And, to keep it maintained there were frequent stops and slowdowns for construction crews. Golden, Revelstoke, Sicomous, Salmon Arm, Sorrento and Kamloops clicked by slowly.
Nine hours of mountain driving involves a lot of vista gazing. As I moved west away from the Rockies, the hills weren't as jagged but they surrounded incredibly beautiful lakes and valleys. Rain squalls came and went. It reminded me of the Lake District in Northwest England.
Between Golden and Revelstoke, I saw a
man and his dog on the east-bound side, walking his bike up the hill, pulling a cart with his belongings. Golden and Revelstoke are 148 km apart, nearly two hours in a car and this guy was less than half way to Golden. Naturally I wanted to pick him up.
I think the child's story about the engine that could was set in the Canadian Rockies. Canadian Pacific trains with a mile of cars being towed slugged their way up the slopes of alongside of the Route 1. I was impressed with the grade they were climbing in some places.
I didn't mind going up the hills and mountains either...it was coming down that unnerved me a bit. Between Kamloops and Hope the highway goes up and up for 15 kilometres...then plateaus...then drops and keeps dropping all the way to sea level. The hills going down seemed to grab control of my van. Even braking I was flying along at speeds I was uncomfortable with entering some of the bends in the highway...especially as the rain began on the western side of the range. The only thing that kept me going was that Hope was at the end.
As I descended toward Vancouver the rains returned...lots of them. Perhaps it's good that the government has closed the national parks so I won't have to complain about the rain. :(
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