Tony on the Rocky Mountaineer, railway stn, Banff
Our carriage on the Rocky Mountaineer, railway stn, Banff
Trees outside the Rocky Mountaineer, railway stn, Banff
View from the Rocky Mountaineer
Kicking horse River from Rocky Mountaineer
Kicking horse River from Rocky Mountaineer
Kicking horse River from Rocky Mountaineer
View from the Rocky Mountaineer
View rom the Rocky Mountaineer
We awoke at 0545 to find that it had been snowing through much of the night and was still snowing. Apparently, according to locals this is the first time that Banff has had settling snow in September since 1927.
Our urgent task was to complete the 22 km trip up to the Banff railway station before the road became even more icy, slushy and dangerous.
Max drove this final leg of our car-hire period with great care and expertise and we arrived safely at Banff with plenty of time to top up the car’s fuel and leave the excellent Dodge Caravan station wagon at the AVIS centre.
Meanwhile Corinne and Sally had collected tickets and confirmed seating for the Rocky Mountaineer which was due to depart from Banff at 0845.
However due to this unseasonal snow, Canadian Pacific Railways were experiencing problems with electrics that control line switching and our train was delayed by an hour.
There were fourteen passenger carriages and ours was number 13 and thus we had a fairly long walk along the uncovered station platform in snow. Once aboard we found the cabin nice and warm, the seating very comfortable and the windows wide and high so vision should be good when the snow stops!
The first 70 km was effectively following the main highway up to Lake Louise. The view from the train was magic with the forests covered in snow and the whole picture very much like a Christmas card scene.
As we passed the picturesque Wapta Lake and reached the highest point on the trip, we started descending towards Field, the snowing stopped and the cloud lifted with small patches of blue sky visible giving us some optimism. The construction of the train line entails some very clever design involving spiralling through two tunnels, like a corkscrew so as to avoid what was previously a very steep and nearly impassable section.
For us the great excitement came when we approached Golden as in this part the train-line follows the Kicking Horse River for about 20 km. This meant we viewed from the train a fair proportion of the river that we ‘white-water’ rafted just three days ago.
The river looked singularly impressive and we got quite a buzz thinking of the thrills we’d had charging down this wild and dramatic canyon. We also saw the part of the river that we had to by-pass on Sunday because it was deemed to be too dangerous. Lots of photos were taken to provide evidence of our exciting rafting experience.
The train journey continued westwards and before we knew it we were winding our way through ravines and forest with not a drop of snow to be seen except for on the tops of the mountain peaks.
Just near Revelstoke we crossed the Columbia River, the river the Kicking Horse flows into.
All the time the highly attentive cabin staff were serving up meals and drinks to the point that we found it too generous! Of course, the traditional ‘Bloody Marys’ were consumed to reinforce the holiday mode.
Just south of Sicamous we first encountered Shuswap Lake. This is a very large ‘H’ shaped lake with a shoreline of 1000 km and has become a holiday paradise with hundreds of houseboats using the lake during summer. Along the shore adjacent to the train-line were numerous holiday homes and many had their own jetties or pontoons in front. In the now sunny conditions the scene looked very appealing and the limpid blue waters of the lake provided a picture book setting.
After passing Salmon Arm where we could see sock-eye spawning action in the river we entered a rural area with cattle and sheep farming on irrigated pasture and large areas of lucerne being baled. Maize and barley crops were seen too.
By the time we’d reached Chase the sun was setting and yet we still had an hour or more before we’d reach Kamloops.
At 2045 we pulled into the station at Kamloops and were then taken by bus to our hotel for the night. Prior to leaving the train, we were given our hotel room keys and informed that when we got to the Thompson Hotel, our luggage would already be in our room. This Rocky Mountaineer operation is very slick!!
Tomorrow morning we’ll be picked up at 0720 to reboard the train for part two of this rain trip through to Vancouver.