A beautiful - but longer than planned- train ride back to Vancouver

  Since we arrived late (ish) last evening, and left by 7:00am, we did not see much of Kamploops, but  I don’t think there is much to see.  It is however a growing city of over 100,000, with many parks and many outdoors activities (for instance, Sun Peaks resort, where we stayed on our way up is only about 30 minutes away).  It also has a large and beautiful lake, where there are many little lake communities - again, everyone who is around waves and smiles at us as we pass, it’s very joyful!  The picture is of the Mountaineer local crew waving us goodbye.  

 The lake empties in the Thompson river, and we followed it for a long time, including its impressive gorge.  The landscape is very dry - we are in a desert (the same desert that extends to Wyoming).  But it is striking, particularly along the river.  Note the inverted tree line - where trees start at higher altitude (instead of of “normal” mountains, where trees stop when you get high enough).  That’s because there is not enough humidity farther down to sustain them.  

 There were many eagles along the river - and there are a lot of Brit’s on the train.  The Brits got REALLY excited by the eagle - i did too to a point, but we do have many of them in the Hudson valley…..  there were also many ospreys and some long horn sheep.  This Opsprey nest has been used every season by generations of the same Osprey family since 1958!

I spent a lot of the time on the outside platform since the weather was so nice.  It is a better place to take pictures, and very pleasant, if a touch windy…..

The Thompson river looks like a fun river to raft down.  Indeed, we saw some people doing it - one of them clearly had been ejected out of the raft…… but he was safely rescued!

The river eventually meets the Fraser, which flows all the way to Vancouver.  The Thompson river is much clearer, because it flows through several lakes where sediment can settle.  When they meet, the difference is striking- the First Nation people called the Thompson the “clear river” and the Fraser the “muddy river”0.  As we crossed the Fraser, we went from the arid semi-desert to the much lusher coastal forest.  

We continued along the Fraser river all the way to Vancouver. The river narrows to “Hell’s Gate” - name by Fraser himself who was trying to find a route through, and found it very challenging.   The rapids looked indeed impressive.  

The train slowed down for a bit (see details below) and the skies had clouded up and it started to rain - also, the landscape was not as dramatic.  So I took a nap……

When I re-opened my eyes, we were in farm country, and the sky was brightening up.    

As we approached Vancouver (very slowly because we had been delayed by some other train, we passed under Portman Bridge across the Fraser river, which was the longest cable-stayed bridge in North America for about 3 days when the Bay Bridge (in San Francisco) was finished.  

The problem with this train ride, is that it uses the same tracks as the freight trains.  And, apparently, freight trains have a lot of problems, and just stop a lot.   So we do end up stopped a lot behind them.  It’s not particularly unpleasant, but it ends up taking a lot of time.   So today, we were supposed to arrive in Vancouver around 6:00pm, and instead, and first it looked like it would be 9:30pm….  But see below…..  as things got messier….

The good thing about being delayed is that they served us dinner (which was not in the original plan).   Food has been exceptional on this trip - not just “good for a train ride” - Really good for anywhere!  This was desert at lunch time.  

Also, the crew is truly spectacular!  By the time we arrive in Vancouver, they had been on the feet, working, and smiling and being friendly for over 18 hours!  They never even expressed frustration, or showed that they had a hard days.  Here is one of them making jokes to keep us entertained…

 Just as we were about to reach the Station at Vancouver, we were told that the swing bridge we were to go on was opened and stuck!  So we could not go anywhere…….   So the time estimate to get to the station went from 9:30 to 10 and then 10:30pm…..  They were worried that we would have to disembark wherever we were (which was very near Vancouver, but not an easy exit) and bring buses to take us to the station…..but the bridge at last opened up and we pulled in at 10:0pm….  Short ride to the airport hotel and we got a few hours of sleep before our flight…..  Sitting in the Maple lounge now…..

Going on a LONG trail ride!!!

 We started the day early, because we were being picked up at 7am for our 2 days train journey back to Vancouver on the Rocky Mountaineer.  The train is exclusively a sightseeing train - it really does not serve as a passager train to go from point A to point B, as it is very slow on purpose.   What it provides is a luxurious and relaxed way to see a lot of great scenery and possibly wild life, while drinking fancy cocktails and eating gourmet meals.  I have put a lot of scenery pictures at the end of the blog, because of course there are a million of them, but this is just a taste.

We did see quite a few black bears along the rails, but it’s hard to take pictures from a moving train.  Here are the two best ones I manage to take.  

We went (again) from Banff to Lake Louise, and then continued West toward Kamloop, where we will spend the night.  

One fascinating feature of the rail just west of Lake Louise is the spiral tunnel.  When the railway was first developed in the late 1800’s, one major problem was the 4.5% slope between Lake Louise and the small town of Fields.  Train kept derailing, and since they were such an important part of the West development, a solution had to be found.  For a while, they would just unload passagers in lake Louise, put them on horse drawn carriages to field, while the train would barrel downhill and take its chances….  After several death and major equipment destruction, it was decided that the spiral tunnel would be built:  these already existed in Switzerland, and engineers were brought from there.  As the name indicates, the spiral tunnels literally make spirals down the mountain, the first one turning 290 degrees while dropping 50 feet, the second one turning 230 degrees and dropping 56 feet.  Here is a freight train (see from above where we are coming from) both entering and exiting the tunnels - the freight trains are very long, so you can see both ends at the same time).  These were built in 1907, starting at both ends at the same time, meeting in the middle - they came within 2 inches of each other, which, given the technology of the time is a remarkable achievements.  Anyway- this made it possible to drop the grade to 2% and at last made passager train safe.

This is a picture of cathedral mountain, which is one of the mountain the tunnels go through.  We had to wait a bit at the entrance of the tunnel because of the freight train are very (there is only one track through).

We passed the little town of Fields - where we had our very late lunch yesterday, and waved at them fondly.  

We continued on along the Kicking Horse gorge- the river was kicking today!, weaving in an out of tunnels through the mountain.  

A lot of the tracks, and of Route 1, which parallel each other, are in dangerous avalanche areas.  So there are several places that are covered, both to avoid the known avalanche tracks, and to provide shelter in case there is one, and the train or cars need to wait for a long time.  

We then started following the Columbia river, one of the most important river in North America:  It has multiple dams that are capable of providing 1/3 of the electricity in the US.  It starts here in the Rockies and ends in Oregon.  

We went through a brief storm, and then the sun came back, just in time for our ride along the very large lake Shuswap - it has little communities and summer cottages all along it, and it is the tradition for everyone to stop when the train passes by and wave - and I mean everyone!  We did not see a single person who was not waving.  It was lovely!

We passed the historically important site of Craigchaile (sp?), where the last tie of the railroad was set, finishing the full crossing of Canadian railway.   It always finally united all of Canada, as British Columbia put having the end to end railroad as a condition to formally join Canada.  

As we continued toward Kamploops, the mountains were replaced by dried hills (Kapmloops is in the only desert if region of canada), and the plains become agricultural, with corn fields and cattle.  Kamploops, which we saw on the way in, is still ugly, but interesting.  But I’ll talk about that tomorrow, because now I’m tired…..