Lakes and bears and RVs oh my
The weather gods continue to be on our side. There were a few light sprinkles during my run very early this morning, and it was a crisp 5 degrees Celsius, but things eventually warmed up to the low twenties. It was a more-cloudy-than-sunny day, but the sporadic rain seemed to save itself for when we were in the car getting from Point A to Point B, and there was patchy blue sky for most of our stops.
We began at Emerald Lake, which is just 10 kilometres or so from our lodge. It was surreal: a bowl of green water, surrounded by conifer-girdled mountains, and dotted with little red canoes that the national park service rents out. There were also the remnants of an avalanche that we hiked to.
We then backtracked into Alberta, across the Continental Divide, and we headed north toward Jasper on the Icefields parkway. Those mountains mean business. Stern and tall and angular, they are the higher peaks of this chain, and they soar above the road, laced with glaciers and snow.
We turned around at Bow Peak and headed to Banff, which unfortunately was chock a block with people, and not somewhere we wanted to tarry. We took a chance on the way back that Moraine Lake might be accessible – it is a steep 14km climb on a narrow road, and there is limited parking at the end point, so the entry point is often closed, once the parking maxes out up top. We were lucky and managed to get in. And wow, what a way to finish the day! The drive up to the lake was spectacular (I’m fully aware that I am using far too many superlatives, but they’re justified) and the lake itself is a jewel of green and blue, nestled in rugged, boulder-strewn crags.
On the way back to the lodge, we spotted a couple of bears scampering up scree at the side of the Trans Canada. They look like black bears rather than grizzlies, but it was cool to see them.
The only blemish on the day was the ubiquity of RVs. There seems to be an entire culture surrounding them, and they like to travel in packs. I know they have as much right as we do to be here, but between them and the tour buses, I shudder to think what ‘high season’ is like, in July and August.
Swift Current to...speechless
Today we covered another seven or eight hundred kilometres. No time zone changes today, only because we're in a tiny corner of B.C. that observes Mountain Time rather than Pacific Time.
I began the day with a run straight out into the prairie. Our hotel for the night was right on the northern edge of Swift Current, and from our room window I could see a road heading off into the grassland, and it called to me. Tim wasn't too keen on me running on what looked like a busy road, but only the first kilometre or so was busy, and the shoulders were wide. Surprisingly, it was a constant ascent for 4 kilometres, and the communications mast that was at the crest of the hill had looked to be only a kilometre or so from the hotel.
I saw an osprey perched on a telephone pole, and stopped to admire it.
We were on the road by 9:30. The stretch between Swift Current and Medicine Hat is cattle country, with progressively more rolling hills and scrubbier land than the farm fields of central Saskatchewan. Beautiful, in its own way.
The stretch between Medicine Hat and Calgary, though, was rather dull and flat and unremarkable.
Just before Calgary, Tim told me to look over to the left, and there were the ghostly profiles of the Rocky Mountains showing on the horizon.
From then on in, it just became more and more glorious. I pride myself on having a rich vocabulary, but for once I just don't have the words. There is no describing the enormity, the grandeur, the beauty. I think this has been one of the happiest days of my life.
We put the cherry on top with a stop at Lake Louise; we arrived at about 18:30, and found parking easily. There were remarkably few people around, and I don't think we could have timed it more opportunely. The sun was just arcing its way towards the peaks for the night, and the light was simply lovely.
I took tons of pictures at Lake Louise with my ''proper'' camera, as well as hundreds through the car windshield with my little camera, but I think this one will have to do as an eloquent summation of the day.
Tomorrow, we are not travelling anywhere; we intend to spend the day exploring Banff and Jasper and Yoho parks.
on to Swift Current
So, if you read yesterday's blog, you'll not be surprised that we got an early start this morning, because why stay any longer in the place-that-shall-not-be-named?
(I actually got chastised for whining too much about it).
The pièce de résistance was still to come this morning, though. I was out the door for a run at 7am, and I found a small river valley with a trail system lacing through it. I’d just reached the turnaround point and was heading back when this happened:
me: (running along path, nobody else in sight)
(noise of bicycle bell behind)
woman: (singsong voice) helloooo, hellooo, hellooo!!!
me (over shoulder): I can hear you
(moves left)
woman on bike (drawing even, still in singsong voice): You should have moved right
me: (in equally singsong voice) F*@k you.
Yeah. Ok. ‘Nuff said.
We were on the road by nine, and we covered the rest of Manitoba and got well into Saskatchewan before detouring north to the Qu’Appelle Valley, an amazing, fairy-tale landscape of rounded hills, lakes and a serpentine river. There we stopped for three wonderful hours with Uncle Harley and Aunt Marianne, who have a home on Pasqua Lake. The dogs went for a swim and we chatted on the deck and had a delicious meal. Then we reluctantly said our goodbyes, with 300 kilometres still to go to Swift Current. Fortunately, we ‘gained’ another hour as we crossed the Saskatchewan border, so our 8-hour drive is only 7 hours by the clock.
What to say about the Prairies? I was honestly steeling myself for a boring, tedious drive, but the vastness is simply indescribable, magical. The skies have a well-earned reputation for hugeness, and the horizons are endless. I was constantly taking pictures through the car window…these are the ones that I am posting today. Though some images may look stormy, we actually encountered only one downpour. The quality may not be perfect, but I hope that these images capture and express some of the beauty that we drove through.
Tomorrow we forge onward, through the rest of Saskatchewan and a slice of Alberta, with our next stop just across the border in British Columbia. I am excited to get my first glimpse of the Rockies rising out of the horizon.
Thunder Bay to Strip-Mall-peg
It was a long drive today, over 700 kilometres. We were up early, and it was a beautiful, calm morning. I went for a run that took me through the campus of Confederation college, then along the river to Lakehead University. We were on the road by just after 9 am.
For the second time in two days, we managed to have a rogue dog in the hallway event. Yesterday, at the cabins, when we were the only guests, it was not so bad. The cabins were set up in a bunkhouse style, with an interior corridor, from which we initially entered the room. We came out the other door, and left the dogs in our cabin, but forgot to close the interior door, and as we unpacked the car, they were gallivanting around the rest of the bunkhouse. This morning, at the Holiday Inn, Arwen must have managed to slip into the hallway during our various comings and goings, taking stuff out to the car. A maid tapped on the door to let her back in.
We didn't get out of Ontario without a speeding ticket, courtesy of the Dryden detachment of the O.P.P. The kind officer knocked it down from 23 over to 15 over and no demerit points.
We stopped at Kakabeka Falls, just outside of Thunder Bay, and spent about an hour there. The falls are enormous, powerful, and magnificent. The one perfect vantage point for photography had been commandeered by three guys who - no word of a lie - spent a good half an hour just taking pictures of one another with cell phones.
The terrain certainly flattened out for the last couple of hours of our drive, which was also our first couple of hours in Manitoba.
Winnipeg is seriously underwhelming, at least the part we are in. It makes Hamilton look good by comparison. We're in some kind of endless strip-mall hell, right on the extremely busy Portage Avenue. I won't be sorry to leave it in the rearview tomorrow.
Searchmont to Thunder Bay
Seven hours of travel today/700 km, and there is still 500km of Ontario left to go.
We woke up to sunny skies and a temperature of 4 degrees in Searchmont, and I went for a glorious 10k along the Goulais River. A constant ascent on the way out, then a sweet descent all the way back. I stopped numerous times to take photos with my phone.
The 700 kilometres we covered took us from one end of Lake Superior to the other. The views from the Trans Canada are magnificent, with sparkling blue waters revealing themselves around each new corner or over each new crest. On the inland side of the road, the rocky outcrops and the ubiquitous birches are equally enchanting.
We only did brief stops for gas or to feed/walk the dogs along the way, wanting to get the kilometres behind us. We've learned that things are rather more remote than expected, and towns and services can be few and far between, with many closed for the holiday weekend.
We detoured to the Terry Fox memorial just as we got to Thunder Bay, and that was a profoundly moving experience, especially having lost my own dad to cancer as well.
We're in a surprisingly nice Holiday Inn for the night (I normally don't even consider them because they're generally not a dog-friendly chain, but this one bucks the trend). Tomorrow, we head for Winnipeg.
