Friday 20 August

Now we have more affordable internet (comes with the accomodation as is usually the case, so we have no excuse!) we will try for more regular updates so we don't have to write so much and our lovely friends don't have to read so much.

On Tuesday morning, after three glorious days in Vancouver, the ever-reliable Kippers delivered us to the station to catch the Rocky Mountaineer train to Jasper, although it turned out to be the wrong station! Fortunately the station we wanted was only five minutes away and we had plenty of time, so we have not sacked him as chauffeur, accomodation-provider, chef and all-around good bloke.


The first day's travel took us to Kamloops at a rather leisurely pace due to a combination of the track continually changing direction, freight trains in front of us and stops at sidings for other freight trains to pass. Of course this leisurely pace all contributed to us taking what now seems like 5,000 photos, most of them duplicates, as we both had our cameras clicking away at the same time. But, first things first - this is meant to be a chronological account of our journey so here we go . . .

On leaving Vancouver, behind three huge deisel locos, we crossed the Fraser River and then proceeded to follow it into the Cascade Mountains. There are two tracks, built by competing companies, from Vancouver right through to Jasper, often side-by-side, but where there was insufficient space, the other company had to take the more difficult route on the opposite side. Although the tracks are still owned by different companies, both now use each other's tracks - one for easterly journeys and one for westerly ones. Engineering out of the way, let's get to the trip!

As we travelled east, the Fraser River became more of a canyon and the line was perched on the edge of Hell's Gate, a narrow gorge through which more water rushes per minute than goes over Niagara Falls.

 From here we travelled on to Cisco Crossing and the bridge over the Jaws of Death Gorge. The very names of these places invoke images of the sort of magnificent scenery we were enjoying, as well as admiration for the engineering expertise of those who planned and built these lines, bridges and tunnels in the late 1800s.

From here we turned east, following the Thomson River and entered an area of semi-arid desert in the rain shadow of the Coastal Mountains. We were not expecting this type of landscape - plateaux rather than mountains, with very little vegetation and native Ponderosa Pines, which had been absolutely devastated by the Pine-beetle, which has ravaged British Columbia's pines since the early 1990s. This landscape was the order of the day right into Kamloops, which was the destination of our first day's travel of some 300 miles.

We did manage some serious wildlife spotting here and many hours were spent hanging out the 'windows' of the platform between carriages. We saw many Osprey (and their wonderful stick nests) and Bald Eagles, both flying and perched in dead pines along the river, a couple of groups of Big Horn Sheep, one Black Bear ambling across a hillside and some Loons (Heff's currently favourite birds) swimming in Lake Kamloops.This is a huge lake, officially regarded as 'bottomless'.

Spent the night in a hotel in Kamloops, a town we won't be rushing back to and boarded the train again at 8am the next morning, ready for another day's adventure. We were extremely lucky to have a wonderfully well-informed and entertaining attendant on our carriage, who fed us and more importantly, shared with us lots and lots of fascinating information about the areas through which we were travelling, the history of those areas and the railways, the flora and fauna and all sorts of lovely trivia.

We travelled north along the North Thomson River valley and saw huge areas which had been burnt out  in a fire four years ago. It seemed to us that the native forests here have much more limited regenerative powers than our native bush at home, as they were still starkly bare. The vegetation and landscape had changed fairly dramatically from the semi-arid desert of the day before and we were seeing lots of swampy areas along the valley and we were back to lots of pines and beech trees on the higher ground, although we were constantly disappointed by the lack of birdlife and our inability to spot any moose, as these are the conditions they enjoy. We were also a bit sad about the fact that the smoke from the almost 300 fires now burning across northern British Columbia was obscuring all but the nearest highlands and mountains.

Travelling through the Caribou Mountains, the last of the Pacific Plate mountains before we reached the much younger Rocky Mountains, we passed by the beautiful Pyramid Falls.

As we waited in a siding for a freight train to pass, we learnt from Tim that freight trains can now be 200 carriages (or 2 miles) long and the longest he has seen was 216 carriages! No wonder they took so damn long to go by!!!!! We also found out why there are pairs of propane cylinders along the tracks. They are not for barbeques for passing train crews, but are linked electronically to 'central control' and are used to heat the points and switches in the winter - stuff you don''t even think about! Ignore the fact that this photo of a passing freight train was taken much earlier in the 'dry' country!

On we went, unable to see exciting things like the Albreda Glacier and Mt. Robson (highest point in the Canadian Rockies) because of the smoke and came to the Rocky Mountain Trench, where the two tectonic plates meet. Here we again ran alongside the Fraser River and discovered that the Chinook Salmon travel from the Pacific Ocean 800 miles to this area to spawn - how amazing is that? We were also amazed that we had seen the Fraser River here at its headwaters in Moose Lake and also where it enters the ocean at Vancouver.

As we crossed the Continental Divide at the highest point of our journey - about 3,200 feet (note how we have regressed to imperial measurements here in North America!), we left British Columbia and entered Alberta. We had expected that we would do a bit more climbing on this trip, but much of the journey was along river valleys (which makes perfect sense if you are a railway or roads' engineer), unlike our trip through the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains on the Californian Zephyr, which reached heights of 9,000 feet and was, therefore, much more spectacular in many respects.
Arrived in Jasper at 6pm after a very enjoyable two days  - it is much more relaxing to travel long distances on a train than to drive, especially if you are being fed, watered and entertained and as a huge bonus, you get to meet lots of interesting people.

Our kind bed and breakfast host Ken came and picked us up from the station, so we settled ourselves into the Hummingbird Crossing B & B (what a great name!) and set off to explore Jasper, which sounds like a great place to spend the next two days.
The next part of our adventure, the Rocky Mountains, deserves its own blog entry so until next time . . .