Rockies Roadie

Day 30 marked the start of our Rockies adventure. We were headed for Hope for our first leg, breaking up the driving into bite sized chunks but the biggest chunks were over the first 2 days. We were expecting as we got further into the mountains the roads would narrow and become more windy but that couldn't be more far from the reality! The roads were generally 4 lanes minimum and relatively straight. The speed limit ranged from 90 to 120km per hour so you can imagine what they are like! Once we started getting further from Vancouver gas stations became more scarce so after every little township there would be road signs asking if you have checked your gas....next service 150km! The other signs that dominated the roadside were pictures of various animals to watch out for on the road including deer, moose and mountain goats. A large chunk of the road was either cliffs either side or fenced so the animals couldn't wander on to them but there were some fairly open spaces at times where they could wander, near Calgary there were even signs saying watch for Pedestrians....on the highway!
The trip to Hope was busy as everyone was heading away for Labour weekend over here but the roads flow pretty nicely because they are so good and there are almost always passing lanes. The main focus on the way to Hope was to find somewhere to buy bear spray in preparation for going into the forests to look at the scenery. Our first port of call was Walmart but they were all sold out! From there we tried a sporting goods store as we had left it until we were well out of Vancouver to try and get some and were getting close to our first forest adventure, so ended up paying twice the price! With bear spray in hand (which lived in my handbag on my shoulder for the week) I felt a bit more protected and we headed in to see Bridal Veil Falls. The first thing we spotted when we arrived was bear proof bins so we knew we were in bear country again. It was a really pretty waterfall, aptly named as it flows down graduated rounded rocks like a white veil. We arrived in Hope late afternoon as we had run a few errands in Vancouver in the morning and left quite late. With a population of around 4000 it is quite a quaint little town which consist of 1 min street about 3 blocks long. There is a pretty little park in the centre of town and a heap of chainsaw carvings all down the street (Logan has a photo next to one of the bear carvings). The amount of detail they can get with a chainsaw is quite impressive.
Anything off the main street was a little run down and dilapidated, some of the buildings have definitely seen better days. It did have a nice feeling about it though, we felt like we were at the start of the mountains with the little township surrounded on all sides. There were mountains peaking out at the end of every road, though they were small in comparison to what we would see later in the journey.
Day 31 we were headed to Kelowna. We weren't certain whether we would be able to go through Kelowna because of the wildfires, but they had just enough rain while we were in Vancouver to get some of the major ones in that area under control and even the smoke that had shrouded the region for the previous week had lifted dramatically. It was thinker as we got closer but didn't obscure the view fully like it had, but just added a bit of a mist to the air which almost gave us a better perspective of the depth of the mountains. Rach had suggested we go this way rather than the standard Kamloops as it was a more scenic drive. Our first stop on the road was not far from Hope, a place called Coquihalla Canyon, otherwise known as The Othello Tunnels. This is where some of Rambo was filmed. It is an old railway route of the Kettle Valley Railway that operated from 1916 and closed down in the early 60's. Because they tunneled through the canyon all of the bits not in the rock were subject to frequent rock slides, avalanches and falling trees. It was an extremely high maintenance track and that's what eventually led to it being closed. It was an impressive feat of engineering for the time it was built and the man who designed it was dropped in by rope from the top of the canyon to survey the area none else would touch. Apparently they used to schedule the journeys through there at night time so the passengers couldn't see the scary dropoffs! The canyon itself is beautiful. It is tight, unlike the vast size of the Grand Canyon, but it has beautiful blue water running through fed by the glaciers and the height of it from top to bottom must have been 100m. Just shear rock face with spruce popping out the top. The trail continues through the tunnels and into some quite different forest which is quite mystical. Little rock ledges with fallen trees covered in moss and lichen and the sun is obscured by the canopy of the forest. I believe Gorillas in the Mist was also filmed around here!
Once you get back on the highway you follow the rest of the Kettle Valley Railway, which no longer exists, but they have left all of the old station markers on the side of the road. They are also named after Shakespeare characters, apparently the engineer who designed it was quite a fan.
A little stop in Merritt for lunch was very reminiscent of Katikati. It's a similar size and there are murals everywhere. There is the Mural Walk of Fame which is a walk around 2 blocks with murals of famous Canadians covering all of the buildings - quite cute but also a little odd. The industry for the town is obviously forestry as there was a massive log yard as you first get in to town. 5 minutes out of Merritt is the worlds largest glass bell collection...so we had to go and have a look. It's a very quirky bell garden and it looks like it is part of someones property so we aren't actually sure who it belongs to.
We were keen to see some scenery so headed to Harmon Lake which is not far from Merritt. Unfortunately google maps doesn't seem to have a 'dont use unsealed  roads' setting like a GPS does. Pretty sure you aren't supposed to do on unsealed roads in rental cars but hey, 11 kms up a gravel road in Kane Valley we made it to the lake. It was quite pretty, your classic camping lake, and there are camping lots up the top that were all occupied by RVs. The whole area surrounding the lake and road was farmland (a couple of ranches) and there were horses and cows roaming fairly freely about. There were also signs along the side of the road indicating ski areas so it must be used for cross country skiing in winter, but it's not really a proper ski field that we could see.
We arrived in kelowna late afternoon so plenty of time for a wander through town in the daylight. Kelowna has a similar population to Tauranga City but the actual city is quite contained in one area. It's a little more like a combo of downtown Mount and Devonport in Auckland. When you first drive in from the top of the hill and over the bridge into the main city you have to remind yourself it is a lake rather than a harbor. There is just something about it that makes it not feel like a lake resort, but it definitely has the feel of a rich mans playground. There is a massive marina, beautiful waterfront, funky pubs and eateries and loads of tanned people wandering the streets and out on their jet skis. Any watersport is available and the hotels in the main city are super expensive. It was ramping up as we were there on the Friday night of the long weekend but it had a really nice vibe about it. It's so weird to think there are cities like this tucked away in the middle of the mountains! And we were thinking they would all be tiny little villages.
Day 32 was headed for Revelstoke. We had a couple of stops along the way and there were definitely showing the more quirky side of Canada. A lot of the things we found in this road trip were the types of things we were expecting on the American leg, not this leg! We found an Enchanted forest which was pretty cute but rather random. It's a little area in the forest with fiberglass fairytale characters and houses all through it, and little paths with miniature picket fences to guide the way. It was private property and back in the 50's the lady who lived there was a sculptor. She decided to create an enchanted forest in her garden being inspired by the surroundings and her husband dug out all of the paths by hand. In the early 60s they decided to open it to the public, and it is still as it was today.
Just down the road was Crazy Creek Suspension Bridge and falls....nothing too exciting and then on to lunch at a place called Salmon Arm (funny enough there was no Salmon on the menu). This was were we conected back up to the main Trans-Canada highway route. Because we hadn't had enough weird stops for the day our last stop was Log Cabin 1912. This was probably the quirkiest of them all. As the name suggests it is indeed a log cabin that was built in 1912. It was a gift/icecream store with a petting zoo. There was a bridge over the parking lot with mountain goats on it and massive dinosaur and bear models everywhere. There was a massive garden with old vintage cars in it, wildflowers and other animal models.
After a long day of adventuring we were quite late getting into Revelstoke. We managed to time it just right to get down to the riverfront park in time to watch the sun setting over the mountains. The smoke added another dimension to it which made it seem quite surreal. It's already an awe inspiring place ro be and the shear size of the mountains and beauty that surrounds you is hard to put into words. No words, photos, videos can so any justice whatsoever. It really is something you have to be in and experience first hand!
Revelstoke itself is very small and quaint. We can just imagine how gorgeous it would be covered in snow. It has a boutique ski field that keeps it going through the winter months, but in summer it does feel more like a place people just pass through.
Day 33 we were bound for Lake Louise. First stop was Revelstoke Dam. Not as large or impressive as the Hoover Dam but still pretty big, and surrounded by much prettier scenery. You can go in an up the dam but we had limited time with a full day ahead.
The road through Glaciers National Park between Revelstoke and Lake Louise was much more windey and loaded with snow sheds. There were are few in other places on the journey but they seemed to be every 500m in some parts of this road. There were a lot of avalanche valleys they were protecting from and obviously those roads are hard to get to with the snow plough in winter. The other giveaway with the state of the roads was a 40 ft truck down a ditch upside down and another that was fully burnt out sitting in the outside lane heading up the hill. It must have caught fire the day before or overnight as although there wasn't much left of it, the fire crew were still there and it was still smoking.
We stopped off at the Giant Cedars Boardwalk, and the cedars weren't as giant as we thought they would be. They are pretty old trees but they get nowhere near as big as the redwoods. They have National Park passes in Canada that allow you to stop and do trails etc. They dont really monitor it in most places and dont make it obvious where to get them or what you need them for. Once you have a day pass you can access any national park, the locals all have year passes, but we skipped our on the first one. When we asked the attendant whether we needed one she said not to worry this time. It is quite a good user pays system to raise funds for maintaining the parks.
Lunch was in a place called Golden at a little restaurant called The Island. It is on an island in the middle of the river.
Just before hitting Lake Louise we stopped off at Takakkaw Falls and Emerald Lake. This time we sorted out a National Park Pass which was valid till the end of the next day.
The drive to get to Takakkaw Falls is lovely, mountains popping up every turn (like most of the drive) with lovely winding roads and forest either side. You can see the waterfall well before you get to it and the sound of it as soon as you get out of the car is incredible. It's the second highest freefall waterfall in North America at around 250m freefall. The walk to get right under the falls is quite short but it is along the river and over a little bridge so it is really pretty, despite how crowded it is. As we have been getting higher it has been getting colder, and some of the mountains surrounding the falls have visible glaciers. It's quite a contracts to the hill the actual waterfall is in as it looks more like the grand canyon.
Right up by the falls we met our first chipmunk. They are so cute!! We weren't sure at first if it was a chipmunk as I had always believed they were smaller than squirrels but this was more the size of a hamster. On doing some research the Eastern Canadian Chipmunk can get up to 30cm long. It was pretty cheeky and not scared to come up and investigate us.
Emerald Lake was breathtaking. It was the first glacier fed lake we had seen and the colour it creates is phenomenal. There is a lodge on the side of the lake that doubles as a wedding venue and there was a wedding happening while we were there. They had the outside fire all stacked ready to go on the lakefront with chairs around it. It would be such a stunning location for a wedding. It was so tranquil and beautiful you could just stare at it all day and not get bored. It was so still nestled in the mountains, the water was like a mirror!
We finally got to Lake Louise around 7pm. Just in time for a quick wander around 'town'. Its called a village for a reason I guess. It is literally the hotels which each have a few reataurant/pubs and a small strip mall with about 4 or 5 shops.....that's it! I imagine it would be absolutely humming in the winter months and everything is a maximum of 2 blocks away. We rugged up asbitvwaa forecast ro be 1°c overnight, and we woke the next morning to a decent snowfall covering the mountain tops surrounding us. We were definitely not expecting that! It was a super cloudy morning with clouds hanging extremely low over the mountains, with just the odd hole showing showy peaks. It was quite surreal. We headed to Lake Louise as it was getting dark when we arrived the night before so we didn't make it. We walked around the outside of it which is about 2km to get a good view of Fairmont Chataeau. It is really quite something from the other end of the lake, and it was that beautiful aquamarine colour. The low clouds, glaciers and snow capped mountains just added to the beauty of it all. On the way back we spotted another Chipmunk hanging in the bushes munching away. This one was tiny, more the size we expected a chipmunk to be! I had been keen on hiring one of the red canoes and paddling over the lake, but at $105 (USD) for 30 minutes we passed.
Moraine Lake was also stunning. That beautiful colour again, and really expensive canoes lol.
We headed up the Lake Louise Gondola which is basically the ski lift but they turn it into a tourist thing over summer. You can choose a proper gondola cabin or an open air ski lift. We went with rye ski lift in the hope of finding bears below. It is meant to be the best place in the area to see them. Well I think they were all resting because none of them came to play for us. The scenery however was the most stunning I have ever seen! Heading up was a nice view of the ski fields (which Logan was getting very animated about) and the snow capped peaks above us. It got chillier towards the top but we were all rugged up in preparation. We stopped and had lunch at the restaurant at the top....a game platter. Most of the meat was raw, half of it was ok and the rest was gross. Bison tartar, roasted bone marrow, duck bacon (not like bacon at all!), prosciutto, cured bison and some preserves.
While we were 'enjoying' lunch our view was a panoramic of the mountains surrounding Lake Louise, and an aerial view of Lake Louise itself. There was a slight smokey mist which made it look more like a painting than a window! Then we got to enjoy the view all the way down. When we got to the bottom around an hour and a half later we noticed how much less snow there was up the top compared with when we went up. It was almost half gone, so the sun had some decent heat in it, and it was quite a thin layer.
It was just an easy 45 minute drive from Lake Louise to Banff so we left quite late and got there late afternoon. Something we had noticed previously on the roads, but there were heaps between Lake Louise and Banff, was animal crossings over the highway. It is essentially an over ridge that connects the forests on either side of the highway and is planted with trees and bushes and grass just like the natural forest. It is such a cool idea to minimise the disruption the highway creates for the animals in their natural habitat.
Straight away we were taken by the scenery surrounding Banff, and the little township itself is just gorgeous. It reminded us a little of Queenstown with similar buildings, lots of fudgeries and sweet shops, surrounded by mountains and  just generally pretty. We decided to head up the Banff Hotsprings for sunset. The pool itself is outside on the hillside overlooking the other mountains and unfortunately the sun sets behind the building site we didn't really see it.
Day 34 we kicked around Banff checking out the hoodoos on Mt Tunnel, and checking out Bow Falls which is beautiful! Quite different again to all of the other waterfalls we have seen. We were going to do the Banff Gondola after such an amazing view the day before but in arriving and discovering it was $64 each we gave it a miss. It was good timing though, as Logan spotted an Elk on the way back down in a tiny slither of trees on a tight U bend between the gondola and hotsprings.
We had a quick drive around the Vermillion Lakes in the hope of seeing beavers but it was the wrong time of day so we eaded to the Banff sign for a photo before makeing our way to Calgary. When we first pulled up to the sign there seemed to be a bank up of traffic pulled over just past it. We immediately pulled over to see what was happening as that normally means animals. The cars suddenly cleared and a ranger truck with its lights flashing came the other way. While we were at the sign the rNger jumped out with a massive gun (assuming it was a tranq gun) and crossed the road into the bushes beside us. We are not sure what was happening but when we drove further down the road after we had finished there was another ranger and ranger truck doing the same thing. We think maybe it was a brown bear as we couldn't think of another reason for them to be so uptight.
We drove through a few other areas hoping to see wildlife but nothing other than deer eventuated. There were some led signs in a subdivision telling people there were bears active in the area and to remove fruit from their yards.
We stopped off at Canmore Rail Bridge which was quite pretty, more of a photo stop and our last full of the gorgeous mountains before heading back into the city.
As you leave the mountains and enter the plains on the Cakgary side the view back towards the mountains is quite spectacular. There is miles and miles of flat plains and then an enormous mountain range that rises up out of nowhere and goes on forever. When you are fully immersed in it, it really does make you feel quite insignificant!
Calgary is a nice city. Quite stark and lacking character though. We went up the Calgary Tower before dark and settled in to the hotel.
Day 35 we just cruised. We had planned to go out to the Badlands at Dinoaaur Provincial Park and check out some dinosaur bones but 2.5 hours each way wasn't appealing after 4 days of driving
So we kicked around Calgary instead. We went to Lougheed House which is an old historic house that have fully restored, and checked out the river front (where we saw a snake which we think was an Eastern Garter Snake). They have created a man made wetlands by the stormwater outlets which is quite impressive. With a big travel day ahead we didn't do too much and just relaxed. It's a nice city but not really a destination unless you have something specific to do there.
We are in our way to Hawaii now for a week of recovery and celebrations with Logans family before heading home.

Photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AsbHvsl8mGaZgd8_k4c4J7WR9TH3fg