A Trip from Vancouver to Calgary on
Trans Canada Hwy (HW 1)
Sunday, May 5,
2013-05-13
We left Vancouver at 9 am in good weather. I didn’t like the design of the newly opened 10
lanes cable-
stayed Port Mann Bridge spanning the Fraser River. I remembered of
the incident that happened last winter on the bridge. Ice formed on the cable broke off and crashed
the windshield and roof of cars on the bridge. I didn’t know what they would do
to prevent it from happening again. The bridge was a toll bridge controlled
electronically. I wondered the cost effectiveness of collecting the fee from
out of province cars. It was expected that the toll would end after 40 years. We passed through Surrey and Langley, and the view along the
road was obstructed by buildings and trees. Occasionally we saw partially the peak
of Mount Baker in Washington State. A full view of the majestic mountain
started to appear as we entered the farming country at Abbotsford. However,
the sun was shining in front of us, and the mountain didn't look very bright.
The view would be much better if the sun was behind us. The view of beautiful
mountain range and peaks started to come very close to us as we entered
Chilliwack.
East of Rosedale, the highway ran along the foot on the west
side of the mountain. Although we were not far
from Fraser River, but we didn’t
see the river until we were in Hope where the river changed its course
northward. There was a lookout at this
bend, and it offered a good view of the river. We stopped at a grocery store to
get some foods to be eaten on the road. At this point we had the choice of
either continuing to travel along the river or switched to HW #5 which was a
faster road. We decided to take the former one to enjoy the beauty of the Fraser
River Canyon.
The canyon officially started from Yale, but we felt that we
were in a canyon immediately after leaving Hope.
There were 7 tunnels along the
canyon. The first tunnel was Yale Tunnel, and it was only 15 minutes driving
from Hope. So far we had not seen any part of the river in the canyon, the view
was blocked by trees. According to publications, the river was navigable up to
Yale, and then it made a 90 degree turn and ran northward. There was a lookout slightly
upstream from the bend to give us a good view of the river. The water remained
its muddy colour, but its width had been reduced to only 1/3 of its width downstream.
The bank was full of sharp rocks extending down underwater. We made another
stop up stream where the river became a small lake. We could see train
travelling on the other side of the river very close to the steep and tall
cliff.
We passed the second tunnel called Saddle Rock Tunnel. And
saw our first high mountain. I couldn’t find its
name, and its height was about
1,000m. Its face had many cuts running from its top to its foot, and exposing
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the dark gray granite rocks that it was made out of. We saw two motorcycles when we approached the
third tunnel called Sailor Bar Tunnel. And later on, we saw many more of them
on the road, and they looked like the expensive Harley motorcycles.We stopped after crossing the river at the north end of
Alexandra Bridge. We walked back to the bridge to enjoy the scenery of the
canyon. We saw the railway track under the bridge running on the east bank of
the river, and the western end portion of the old Alexandra Bridge in the
provincial park bearing the same name. This old bridge was not shown in Google
regular map, but it was shown in Google satellite map. On the bridge, we saw in
a distant a snow capped mountain covered densely with trees. In about the middle of its slope, there was a
wide clear cut around like a lace on a skirt. I was not sure if it was the
space left after the trees were harvested or it was its rocky features.
We passed the fourth
tunnel called Alexandra Tunnel, and soon we were near Hell Gate. There were two
large cracks on a big mountain on the west bank of the river. The mountain was
densely covered with trees, and therefore, the cracks looked very significant.
It turned out that they were two waterfalls that were falling in cascade from
near the top at a height of close to 1,000m. We had been climbing steadily and
reached 250 m in elevation near Hell Gate. I missed the parking lot at Hell
Gate on the east side of the road, and made a U-turn to come back and park in
front of the airtram station. There was not much change there, and the air tram
was running as usual to bring the visitors down to its centre down at the other
side of the river bank. We were disappointed but it made business sense that
there were no rest facilities on the station up on the road. One would have to
pay to ride the air tram if one was in need of using the restroom. In one of my
previous visits, we could walk down a wide graveled service road next to the
tram station to an open area to get a better view of the river, but now the
entrance to this road had been closed. There were many big black colour
motorcycles in the parking lot, and one was easily caught the eye by its bright
feminine light blue colour.
We stopped at a lookout near Falls Creek. In front on the
west bank of the river was a snow capped rocky
mountain. It face was full of
scars like the face of a smallpox patient.
On the other side of the canyon the mountain was covered with a good
mixture of coniferous and deciduous trees, and they should produce a beautiful
colour in fall. At a rest centre not far down the road, we saw a car with a
Hawaiian licence plate. The lone young driver was taking nap. I wondered what
made him transported the car across the Pacific Ocean. There were many big
posters advertising the Circular Routes in British Columbia. Each route had its
own theme like Great Northern, Heritage Discovery etc. It must be interesting
to try on these routes. The information could also be found in the Internet.
There was a lookout south of Lytton, and we enjoyed a good
view of the beautiful valley in front of us. We
saw the Lytton CNR Fraser Bridge
at a distance. Later, I learned on the Internet that this bridge had a unique
feature that it had a pedestrian walkway on its north side. This walkway was used
by people living on the west bank of Fraser River. We turned into the direction
of a tourist information centre as we entered Lytton. The road brought us down
to the river bank where the business district of this small town was located.
In addition to some small residential frame houses, it had a church, a tourist
centre and a small museum. We visited the centre and the museum, and had some
nice talks with the staff. Regretfully, none of them mentioned to us the unique
feature of this bridge, and we therefore, missed the opportunity to see
it.
We walked to the lookout at the end
of the street where the dark colour Thompson River flowed from east
into the
muddy colour Fraser River. The tongue of the dark colour water adhered to the
east bank of the river, and its width reduced gradually. From the satellite
photo on Google map, this tongue remained distinguishable south of Lytton CNR
Fraser River Bridge. We also saw partially the highway bridge and the railway
bridge crossing the Thompson River not far upstream. Trees on the bank blocked
our view. A train was running on the bridge when were there, It would be more
interesting if we could see the whole bridges.
At Lytton, Trans Canada Hwy turned east and ran along the
south side of Thompson River, and immediately we could feel that we were entering
the arid country of the Thompson Valley. The road cut revealed that the
mountains were made out of light, close to white colour, loose sedimentary
rocks. The mountains alongside the valley were not tall, and they were sparse of
trees like the face of a man who had not shaved for several days. Most of the mountains had gentle slope as a
result of erosion The colour of the river remained dark along the
canyon.
At about 14 km east of Lytton, the course of the river
changed from east-west to north-south. At north of
Goldpan Provincial Park, we
saw a rarely seen high mountain cliff exposing the hard rock near the top of
the mountain. We crossed the river at Spencer Bridge and travelled along the
west bank of the river. At south of Epson Provincial Park, we saw a train was
coming at a distance. Fortunately, we soon found a lookout area on the side of the
road and stopped. I waited for a minute for the locomotive to appear right in
front of me and took the best photo on this trip. The river and the rail track
made gentle bends in the area, and the train looked like a giant snake wiggling
as it moved.
We stopped again at a
lookout in Epsom Provincial Park not far down the road. Across the river was the
Spatsum Lomax
Substation of the CN Rail, and there was a big concrete structure on the bank
and a big cylindrical tank that used in petro-chemical industry. I wondered if
it was a water pumping station. Not far down the road, we saw a large dairy
farm in Ashcroft. The cows were kept in a long fence-in open space. The whole
space was divided into eight by fences, and there were about 20 Holstein and
other kinds of cows in each compartment. In front of this fence-in space was a
large green pastureland maintained by irrigation water from the river. The farm
was surrounded by wasted rangeland. We had gained altitude rapidly from Epsom
Provincial Park at about 250 m until we reached 500 m near Ashcroft.
The river and the highway then turned east toward Kamloops.
Not far after the turn, for the first time we started to see a large number of rock
formations near the top face of a mountain like candle sticks on an altar. They
were the remaining hard rock as a result of erosion. This was a common feature
of mountains seen in Arizona. We passed the Juniper Beach Provincial Park where
we saw some recreational vehicles parking on the bank of Thompson River, but
there were only a few trees in the park. There were more green farmlands as we
approached the western end of Kamloops Lake.
We crossed the river again as it flowed out of Kamloops Lake
and travelled along the south shore of the
lake. We stopped at a lookout just
west of the place where the lake took a bend toward south-east. With the help
of a powerful zoom lens, we could see clearly Kamloops at the eastern end of
the lake and the rich and wide farmlands on the south shore of the lake.
There was a large intersection west of Kamloops at the junction
with HW #5. We stopped for gas at Kamloops, and I didn’t pay attention to the
road sign at the intersection. After filled up the tank, I asked the cashier if
there was any major supermarket down the road that I was planning to take, and
he said none. I had to go back to the road where I came from and made a few
turns to find one. I failed to register his instruction in my mind. I
continued
to drive along the road which I thought was Trans Canada Hwy. Gradually, the
scenery changed quickly from commercial to old residential, to new large scale
residential development, and to farming. I started to wonder what had happened. I was anxiously
looking for road sign which didn’t turn out. It was late afternoon, and the
shadow indicated that I was driving south. I suspected that I was not on the
right road, and 10 minutes later, I decided to turn back. The altitude at
Kamloops was 250 m, and it increased as we traveled south. By the time we
turned back, we had reached 900 m. We returned to the intersection where the
gas station was and found the road sign which I had ignored when I turned into
the gas station. It turned out that I should made a left turn there to continue
on HW #1. I was travelling south on HW #5A when I didn’t make the proper turn.
Since it was still very bright, we preferred to continue
driving. We stopped at a supermarket to
buy some
foods for dinner. There were two rivers flowing into the east end of
Kamloops Lake. One continued in east-west direction and was called South
Thompson River, and the other ran north-east and was called North Thompson
River. Out of Kamloops, Trans Canada Hwy followed the south bank of South
Thompson River, and we saw many large condo developments north of the highway.
The foot of the low hills along the highway were severely eroded and exposed
its sandy composition. Slightly east of Monte Creek Provincial Park, the river
made a gentle bend and turned northeast. The hills started to show its rocky
composition shaping the course of the river. Trees became denser along the road
and one could not miss such a change after travelling through
the arid
rangeland. We passed Chase; Little Shuswap Lake which was the head of South
Thompson River; a short river called Little River connecting Little Shuswap
Lake and Shuswap Lake; Shuswap Lake and many small communities. The trees must
be dense enough that we didn’t have any photos taken on this section of the
road. The day was still very bright at
6:30 pm, but we decided to rest in a roadside motel at a lakeshore community
called Sorrento east of the western end of Shuswap Lake. We were tired, and
didn’t walk to see the lake. The room was clean and tidy and it had a full
kitchen.
Monday, 2013-5-6
When I checked the car in the morning, I found out that I
forgot to take the GPS in for charging or turned it
off, but I didn't do
anything about it believing that the battery should be good for another day. We
left at 7:45 after having breakfast in our room. We stopped at a rest area
looking out Shuswap Lake. Supposedly it provided a commanding view of the
beautiful lake, the mountains surrounding it, and the many small communities on
its shore. However, trees had grown very tall at the edge of the area, and
blocked the view. I had to stand up on the picnic table to get a better view of the lake. The government should
pay attention in pruning these trees or else the money spent on creating and
maintaining these sites would be wasted.
Trans Canada Hwy turned south at Blind Bay. My GPS track
indicated that I turned west in an intersection
and drove for 3 minutes before
turning back to that same intersection and resumed my course on HW #1. I had no
recollection of why I did that. Shuswap Lake had four arms forming a letter
“H”. The arm running south-west was called Salmon Arm, and the road turned
south toward the end of Salmon Arm. We drove pass rich farmlands and heavily
populated communities all the way until we were out of the city Salmon Arm. We
then climbed up the road along the foot of Larch Hill and descended into
Sicamous. It was a beautiful village in a delta of Eagle River emptying into the
east end of Salmon Arm. The village faced Salmon Arm on its west, and there was
a short channel connecting Salmon Arm to another lake called Mara Lake at its
south. We stopped here in a small park enjoying the beautiful scenery. Looking
through the channel connecting Salmon Arm and Mara Lake, we saw endless number
of houseboats mooring in the water. Later, I learned that the village was called
the capital of house boats.
We were in Eagle Pass travelling on the south shore of the
meandered Eagle River to the east. We started at
the south bank of the river,
and then crossed it north of Malakwa, and then crossed it again west of Skytrek
Adventure Park. We stopped at the crossing taking some photos of the water
cascading on the rocky river bed. We then found out there was a waterfalls not
far from the road. The drop was about 30 m, and it was beautiful like the dress
of a bride. The air was very moist due to the fine spray from the falls. It was
very rocky and slippery and I didn’t explore closer to the pool of the falls.
When I returned to the car, I was shocked to find that the GPS had been dead
for some time. Later, I found that I lost 2 hours of track since 8;11 am. I
quickly turned my notebook computer and then put it on sleep and plugged in the
GPS on the USB port. In sleep mode, the computer continued to supply power on
its USB ports. The elevation was now at 500 m.
We stopped at Skytrek Park to take photo of the beautiful
valley, but had no photo of Griffin Lake which
was slightly further down the
road. Its view might have been blocked by trees from the road. Our next stop
was at a rest area in Rutherford Beach in the southwest tip of Three Valley
Lake. The beach had fine gravel, and the water was clear. It is a little windy
and there were ripples on the water. Looking north from the beach, we could see
the snow sprinkled tops on mountains surrounding the lake. I was not sure if one
of the peaks was Eagle Pass Mountain. And
looking east, we could see the red roof of the Three Valley Resort floating at
the end of the lake. We then stopped at Three Valley Resort; we could see the
snow covered face of Mount Griffin, but the photo taken from this end was not
as attractive as those taken at the beach. There was a waterfalls flowing from
the top of a mountain next to the north of the resort. It was like milk flowing
out of leaky pot.
We stopped at Victor Lake not far down the road to take some
photos. I noticed that the rocks near the top
of a rocky cliff on the west side
of the road were hanging dangerously. Before entering Revelstoke, we saw a sign
of Revelstoke Dam, and decided to follow it.
The small Westside Road passed the garbage dump of Revelstoke and then
we saw the dam. It took only about 10 minutes driving to get there. The road
leading to the visitor centre was closed and would not open for public until
Victoria Day. We drove slightly north until we reach the western end of the dam.
The main dam and its hydro power generating facilities were at the canyon
section which was at the east end of the dam, and the remaining large section
was just a 30 m height wall of the reservoir (Revelstoke Lake). The exterior of
the wall was covered by rocks. We had a good
view of the valley and the
surrounding mountains. Mt MacPherson was a massive featureless mountain, and to
its east was Mt Begbie. We saw its peak had three majestic ridges, and it looked
like a crown. Shiny glacier flowed out from its top to fill the gaps between
ridges. We turned back and stopped at a
large grassy space for taking more photos. We also stopped on the roadside bank
of Columbia River where we had a good view of Mt Cartier and Mt MacKenzie.
We had lunch at a small park after crossing Columbia River
Bridge at Revelstoke. There were two other
bridges very close to the east: the
CN rail bridge and the Big Eddy Bridge. The city was surrounded by many snow
covered tall mountains, and in the park there was a pole with 8 signs on its
top giving the name of the mountain it was pointing to. A man came carrying a
big professional TV camera, and he was testing the best spot for taking the
video. A CN freight train came soon after two officials arrived. They were
apparently shooting some documentary. It took 10 minutes for the whole train to
cross the bridge. When we were about to pull out from the parking lot, a large
Harley motorcycle came and parked beside me. The rider wore complete leather
attire. I expected that he was a very masculine young man, but when he turned
his head, I saw a fragile and skinny old face.
East of Revelstoke, we were on Rogers Pass travelling on the north
shore of Illecillewaet River. Along the
way, our view was filled with the
majestic snow covered mountains. We took all opportunity to stop at the
lookouts to enjoy the scenery and taking photos. Ching was also busy in taking
photos from inside the car when we were travelling. Sometimes, I missed and
passed a lookout, and I would try to make a U-turn to stop at the lookout. I
was interested in knowing the name of the mountains that we saw on the road,
and it was not easy and trivial. I had only identified Mt Llewelyn due to the unique
shape of its peak. A series of majestic peaks followed us for quite sometimes,
and they were easily identified on Google map as: Avalanche Mountain, Eagle
Peak, Uto Peak and Mt Sir Donald in Glacier National Park. The peak of Mt Sir
Donald in particular was very pointy like pyramid. Other mountains that I had
identified with the help of Google map and my GPS track was : Cupola Mountain, Robinson
Peak, Mount Gordon, and Morbely Peak at Golden.
We passed several concrete snow avalanche sheds in Rogers
Pass. The towering mountain was
threateningly very close to the shed. Snow was still full on the avalanche
route running narrowly from the top and fanning like a skirt at the base of the
mountain. And snow bank was still a man height beside the road. Rail tracks ran
closer to the foot of the mountain, and I wondered if they got more problems
with the avalanches. We were travelling northeast along the Rogers Pass. When
we reached the foot of Cheops Mountain, we crossed the Illecillewaet River, and
continued east along the narrow valley.
The valley soon turned into a fork with its main branch turning south,
and the pass took the narrower north branch between the Cheops Mountain on the
west and Avalanche Mountain on the east. We passed the summit of the pass, and the
road
continued going northward until it was blocked by Mt Sifton. It then turned
east around Mt MacDonald, and turned north again around Mt Tupper. At this
point, Rogers Pass was entering the west side of Beaver River Valley. The pass
continued to follow the valley and reached its most northern tip near the
confluence of the Beaver River and Kinbasket Lake. The pass then travelled
along the slope of the mountains south of Kinbasket Lake and finally crossed
Columbia River and ended at Donald.
We started climbing steadily on Rogers Pass from 500 m about
10 km east of Revelstoke, and reached a
maximum of 1,300 m at Rogers Pass
Summit. And then we descended rapidly to 800 m when we reached the Beaver River
valley. It stayed at that elevation until we started climbing again up to
slightly over 1,000 m near south of Mt Cupola. The pass maintained that
elevation as it ran east on the slope of the mountains south of Kinbasket Lake.
Its elevation started to decline from 1,000 m before it made a big “S” turn to
800 m when it descended into Donald.
The road travelled along the east bank of Columbia River, and
the dominant view along this road was the
snow capped mountain range to the
west of the Columbia River. We passed Golden and started climbing the Kicking
Horse Pass. We soon saw many mountain goats crossing the wildlife overpass.
High wire fences had been built along the highway to prevent the wildlife
risking their life to cross the road. I noticed that the gas tank was only a
quarter full, and there might not be any service until we reach Banff, and
decided to turn back to Golden for a fill-up.
The road was built on the south slope of a mountain range
along the Kicking Horse River travelling east and
then southeast. To the north close to the pass, the mountain range
had the following major peaks: Navy Peak, Hunter Mountain, Porcupine Peak and
Mt King. The road cut revealed that the rock was layered sedimentary and pale
in colour. We crossed the river at the southern foot of Navy Peak probably to
avoid the steep slope of the mountain, and soon the road re-crossed the river
by the newly finished 405 m long and 103 m height Park Bridge. I had not done
any homework about what to see along the road, and missed the opportunity to
appreciate this engineering project which would avoid the 140 road accidents
every year. I should have stopped at Kicking Horse Rest Area west of the
bridge, and took the small road that went under the bridge. The most impressive
thing of the bridge seen from the road was the neatly sliced hug rock on its
eastern passage. East of the bridge, we had a clear view of these peaks
mentioned above.
Further east, we had a full view of another mountain range
led by Chancellor Peak, and this view followed us
all the way up to the
southern tip of the pass. Kicking Horse River made a sharp turn toward north at
the southern tip of the mountain range where Mt King was found. The road
crossed the river and then followed it northward. We started to see Mt Vaux, Vaux
N1 and Mt Hurd which were on the same range as Mt Chancellor. A short distance
further down the road, we saw the heavily snow covered Mt Duchesnay and Mt
Owen.
Up to this point, we were travelling on the foot of the
mountains east of the river. We crossed the river at
south of Field, and
followed the river close to its bank. At this place, the river bed was wide and
dry. The view was dominated by Mt Burgess on the west and Mt Stephen on the
east and both mountains were very close to the road. We stopped beside the
river, and took a photo of the dry river bed, the village of Field and the
majestic Mt Stephen. The rail was on the east bank of the river and was very
close to the foot of the mountain. In one photo, it showed that there were
little trees between the train track and the front of the avalanche. The threat
of avalanche had been a big factor in the design of the rail road in this area.
We crossed the river again at the end of this dry river bed. Upstream, the
river became a simple narrow stream. Immediately after crossing the bridge, we
saw a very jagged rock outcrop as big as a hill and the photo showed an entry
liked a tunnel at the base of the rock. At a distance, we saw the majestic
cathedral Crags.
We climbed up the skirt of Cathedral Mountain for about 200m
and stopped at the Spiral Tunnel Lookout.
Water sipping out from rock cut froze
and formed beautiful natural ice sculptures. Originally, an 8 miles long track was
built on Mt Stephen from Wapta Lake to the base of the mountain just west of
Field. The track had a slope of 4.5% which was twice the desire slope of 2.2%. Many
safety factors had been built and used to improve the operation and safety of
the train without satisfaction. After 25 year in operation, a decision was made
to replace it with the double spiral tunnels. The first one was dug in
Cathedral Mountain. It had a length of 1,000 yards, and the different in
elevation between the two entries of the tunnel was 50 feet. The track then
cross the Kicking Horse River and entered a similarly dug tunnel in Mt Ogden.
These two tunnels stretched the distance and reduced the slope of the track to
satisfactory 2.2%.
At the lookout, we saw the featureless and massive Mt Ogden
in front of us. The mountain was covered by
dense trees, but we still could see
clearly the two tunnel entrances on its face. The other tunnel was in Cathedral
Mountain, and its entrances were under our feet which we could not see. On a
Park Canada website, it indicated that 25 to 30 trains used the tunnels daily
but not on a regular schedule. It would be a great benefit to visitors to be
able to arrange their trip to see the train passing through the tunnels. The
other interesting things to see at this lookout were the beautiful Cathedral
Crags standing high in the sky beyond and above the tree tops.
We continued to gain elevation as we travelled east up to the
frozen Wapta Lake, the source of Horse
Kicking River, and reach the summit of
the road at Summit Lake at over 1,600 m. We crossed the provincial border a km east
down the road, and reached the northern tip of the road at another km in Bow
River Valley. We stopped at Lake Louise. The snow banks were man’s height and
there were many snows on the ground, and the lake was completely frozen. There
was not a big crowd on the lake, and one had plenty of space and time to take photo.
Unfortunately, the sun was shining low in front of us. It was 6 pm local time,
but a small number of tourists were still coming. And there were many people
jogging and running along the road. It was getting late; we didn’t stay long
and resumed our journey.
The design of the overpass for wild animal in the Bow River
Valley was fancier to please the large number of
visitors. After seeing so many
snow capped mountains along the road, we started to lose our enthusiasm for
them. However, I didn’t want to miss seeing the Three Sisters at Canmore. The
sight of Pegion Mountain was a relief that we were not far from Calgary.