A Trip from Vancouver to Calgary on Trans Canada Hwy (HW 1)

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

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.