Tuesday June 7, 2022

Kamloops to Banff

Up even earlier today at 5 am, downstairs and on the bus by 6:15.  Here's a sight not often seen - the green hills of Kamloops.  For those who've never been there, they are brown or white 99% of the time.

The train left Kamloops at about 7 am for Banff.  We spent the day stuffing our faces and enjoying the incredible views.  We learned yesterday that freight trains have the right of way, and they can be very long, so we have to stop to let them by.  Sometimes we end up waiting a long while on a siding for a train to get up to where we are stopped.  This happens at least once every hour or two.

Replica of the Lion's Gate Bridge, over the Columbia River at Revelstoke.

We also learned that CP and CN have a reciprocal agreement through the Fraser Canyon whereby all trains travelling east use the CN tracks and those traveling west use the CP tracks.  This is because the Canyon is so narrow that there are next to no passing places for trains traveling in opposite directions.

Breakfast was a yogurt bowl, I really needed something lighter after yesterday!  This morning we sat with the couple who has been sitting across the aisle from us up in the dome car.  Bill and Deb are from North Carolina, near Harrisburg, and they are traveling to Toronto.  They are very nice, he was a nurse and a parachutist with an Airborne Division, and she was a medical imaging technologist, very highly advanced and skilled in her field.  We chatted medical stuff and eating healthy, the differences between army and recreational skydiving and the back injuries that army parachutists end up with.  It was all very interesting!

I have seen hundreds of avalanche chutes over the years, but I've never seen the end result of one.  I guess they never get close enough to the highways to view, but they sure get close to the tracks.  Here is what is left at the bottom of a chute when the snow melts.

Everyone came inside in a hurry when this was spotted.  My first pollen storm!

At last, mountains!

We went through the Spiral Tunnels, an amazing feat of engineering.  It took awhile for me to wrap my head around how they work.  We head one way, circle around and head the other way, circle around and we've climbed the mountain.

The usual snacks appeared, then lunch of olives, bison sausage and bread, then risotto, then apple galette with ice cream.  This time we sat with a couple from Kalamazoo Michigan.  It’s been interesting meeting people from such diverse backgrounds.  Interesting as well that both couples today mentioned politics and are not fans of the last president, or of guns, and they are both very much fans of masks and vaccines.  Very Canadian views!  Ended up stuffed to the brim with food again.

After lunch we discovered why the highway from Revelstoke to Golden was closed last year, and why it still has closures.  This is a bridge they have built (are building?) that eliminates many switchbacks on the #1.  It is massive.

By 5:00 we were getting slightly goofy.

In the evening a couple of people saw a bear (was it though?), and we all saw a moose (Brad & I saw it first, but neither of us managed to get a photo of it) and a few elk.  Very satisfying for those who were seeing the mountains for the first time, and for me as well!  I think everyone in our car is from the US, except for one Aussie couple and one Swedish couple.

A truck and an elk.

More snacks followed, then a wine and cheese pairing at what we thought was the end of the trip.  Unfortunately, there were two freight trains in a row that we had to stop and wait for, for probably over an hour, between Lake Louise and Banff.  The stewards were making up stories and games to occupy us.  They also had the chefs come upstairs so we could give them a round of applause.  All the food is cooked from scratch in the galley in our car.

With all the delays throughout the day, we didn’t roll into Banff station until about 10 pm.  The bus drivers had been waiting for us since 6:00!  We were met outside the Fairmont Banff Springs with our keys – again our luggage was already in our room for us (we think they bus it out).

The stewards had handed out snack boxes to us on the train, since because of the delay the restaurant choices might be limited, plus most of us were too tired to go out at that hour anyway.  Crackers, fig spread, trail mix and Pringles ensured we didn’t starve.  It was midnight by the time we hit the hay.