'Mountaineering' into the Canadian Rockies

---

And so it was now off to the Canadian Rockies. Our trip lasted seven days and comprised three components - a 2 day train trip from Vancouver to Jasper, a 3 day bus trip from Jasper to Banff via Lake Louise, and another 2 day train trip from Banff back to Vancouver. The trip, organised directly through Rocky Mountaineer, offered three grades of travel, for which we chose Silver Leaf, the middle grade, roughly equivalent to Business Class in an airline. My call was that the comfort level over Red Leaf justified the extra cost but the further increment to Gold Leaf wasn't justified. In hindsight now, I think I made the right call.

Both train trips were by necessity non-stop, which obviously limits flexibility with your viewing of specific sights, but clearly not your general sightseeing. They were generally around 8 to 10 hours travel each day on comfortable carriages especially kitted out with large viewing windows. The first trip, through to Jasper, was called 'Journey through the Clouds', which featured the thundering waters of Hell's Gate in the Fraser Canyon, Mount Robson, the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies, and the Pyramid Falls. The return trip from Banff was called 'First Passage to the West', and featured the Spiral Tunnels, Shuswap Lake and the South Thompson River, Stoney Creek Bridge, Kicking Horse Pass, and Craigellachie, the location of the last spike on Canada's transcontinental rail line. The fact that we were upgraded to Gold Leaf on the return trip was a welcome, but completely unexpected, bonus!

While specific sights were minimal, we travelled through really attractive mountain scenery, mainly at ground level but generally following a range of different rivers (often fast-flowing) and flanked by mountains densely covered with a variety of spruce and pine trees. Interestingly, some of these rivers were very long, each emptying into one of the Pacific, Arctic and even Atlantic Oceans. Being summer, and at this lower altitude, there was a minimum of snow, even on the higher peaks. With the landscape constantly changing, the time appeared to pass by far quicker than on an equivalent length plane ride, and more so if you add in the casual chats with other passengers and the copious food and beverages served throughout each journey. To say that we were well-fed would be an understatement, with each carriage having its own culinary staff as well as hostesses. In summary, I would say that these two train trips were a great way to a) ease us initially into the main highlights of the trip, which were the locations at the higher altitude, and then b) to unwind on the journey back to Vancouver. One particularly interesting aspect of the trip was that most of the railway line (almost 1,000 kms each way) was single track, with occasional sidings to allow the frequent freight trains to pass, resulting in a number of temporary stoppages. Many of these freight trains, primarily carrying containers stacked two high, were over 200 units in length and would take over 5 minutes to pass through.

Our overnight hotel stops each way on the train were at a city called Kamloops, which we were surprised to hear was the third biggest city in British Columbia after Vancouver and Calgary. While it looked a pleasant enough place, we didn't feel it had the character of either Jasper or Banff, but perhaps this is influenced by the fact that the latter two towns are smaller, more compact, and surrounded by snow-covered mountains. On our way to Jasper, we stopped off at the massive Columbia Icefield, where we boarded a six-wheel-drive ice truck and explored the huge glacier, Athabasca, including taking a 'stroll' on the glacier itself. En route to Lake Louise, we visited Yoho National Park and checked out Emerald Lake and the Spiral Tunnels, the latter where you could view the same long freight train on three totally different levels simultaneously. During our stay in Banff, we visited the Bow Falls, Lake Minnewanka, the Hoodoos, Moraine Lake, and rode the gondola which gave us a superb 360 degree panorama of Banff town and national park.

For me, however, both the highlight and the lowlight of the whole trip was our overnight stay at the famed Lake Louise. The highlight in that we were fortunate to be there in pretty clear weather, with minimal cloud cover, so the view of the snow-capped Mt Victoria, flanked either side by mountains surrounding the emerald lake matched all the fabulous photos you see in the travel brochures. However, there are only two categories of accommodation at LL - either 5-star at the huge Fairmont Hotel, or backpacker grade in the village some distance away. So, on the downside, not only did the Fairmont seem to have more guests than there are sheep in NZ, but with their monopoly on the top-end clientele and low likelihood of much return business, we thought they really gouged us with prices on all items and certainly did not match it with equivalent quality or service. Of interest, as I checked out, I got the standard "So how's your day going so far?", which led into my response, "Well, since you have asked me ..." with the result that we were credited back the charges for our $40 each buffet breakfasts, which were overcrowded (only one restaurant in the whole complex) with very mediocre service!

One other slight disappointment with the trip, but not a criticism as it was noone's fault, was the lack of wildlife sighted. The Rockies contain a wide variety of animals not seen ‘down under’ except in zoos, such as grizzly and black bears, elks and moose, wolves and coyotes, bighorn sheep etc, and our sightings of these were minimal, despite having everyone on our various buses and train carriages on the lookout for them. We did get a good sighting of a grizzly near Jasper, some elk at Banff, and some longhorn sheep around Kamloops, but that wasn't a huge return for seven days of searching the landscape.

Joan and I are traditionally not that keen on package tours, but sometimes, as in this case, they are the only practical way to see some places you always wanted to visit, such as Alaska and the Rockies. Sometimes you get a less than pleasant surprise with some of your randomly allocated fellow travellers and sometimes the reverse. This trip was one of the latter and we formed a very close bond with two American couples - a couple of African-American ladies from 'Nu Joysey' and a couple of ex-music teachers from upstate New York. No topics were out of bounds, including the potentially sensitive topics of race, religion and politics, and the six of us not only had a ball but we all learnt a little more about other cultures from different parts of the world.

And so it is now eastward bound to catch up with Damon, Sarah and the grandkids in Maryland, but being family, this will not be blogged (is there such a word?). Next blog to appear here (my 60^th) will be when I visit Tibet by myself in October.

---

Photos

Typical train scene around Kamloops
Front of our train on RHS

Athabasca Glacier
Part of the Columbia Icefield