Today will not be what we expect. Although we slept really well and neither of us heard any trains overnight, the day would bring just a few surprises.
We started off with our usual morning preparations and then because the driving would only consist of about 3 hours, we thought we’d hike the “Walk in the past” trail which was documented at just 1.2km each way before we left the campground this morning.
The trail has interpretive stops that tell the story of the building of the railway into Kicking Horse Pass. Little did we imagine that the 1.2km trail (actually 1.6km) would rise by 100 meters through the trees from the campground up and across the Trans-Canada railway to the original 4.5% grade ‘Big hill’ that the trains had to negotiate before the spiral tunnels were built in the early 1900’s. Phew, this was quite a hike, but we had some amazing views across the valley.
Leaving the campground, we had a short drive to Hwy-93 that would take us up to Jasper. Having the Park Pass allowed us to just drive into the park and the road then began its long slope upwards. Shortly into the drive we drove over the Bow mountain summit at 2,098m. Continuing North, the road rose and fell through various passes, the sky darkened and rail began to fall. The rain soon changed to snow, yes snow in late June. No probs we thought, a few flurries in the air, nothing to worry about here. 20 minutes later the snow was accumulating on the windshield wipers, the campervan accident avoidance sensors were covered and resulted in multiple messages within the dash for Tony to clear. Soon enough the snow was accumulating on the road, not much but enough to make driving a 10,000lb vehicle an adventure.
We arrived safely at the Columbia Icefield center but due to the snow and the low clouds could not see any mountains or the Athabaska glacier. We are soon to learn that glacier tours have been canceled for the day as 2m of snow had fallen overnight on the glacier preventing even their large busses from venturing there.
We also had tickets for the Skywalk and so took the coach to that and went for a walk on the wild side (see pictures below). Walking on a glass platform over 900ft above the canyon floor was an interesting experience. The glass is 36mm thick and the cantilevered structure is supposedly designed to support 400,000lbs. Tell that to your brain as you first step onto the glass.
Leaving the zero degree Celsius temperatures at the Icefield, we drove to Jasper where it was a balmy 9C. We treated ourselves to a nice meal ‘out’ this evening before heading to our campsite at the Whistlers campground just outside of town. It was still raining.
We settled in for the evening and watched a movie before saying good night. Tomorrow we cross Alberta.
