Canyon H.S.to Canmore, Alberta-June 13

We are definitely in the Canadian Rockies and the pine beetle is busy up here as well but just not as bad or so it seems. Last night at Canyon Hot Springs out my front window I could look out and see these beautiful mountains with some snow cover still and a freight train line ran right out there as well. With the grade these trains have to make they had 2 engines on the front, 2 engines separated in the middle and then 2 on the end. They go by on a real regular basis but once I was asleep I never hear them. Many RV parks are built near train tracks, as is Spring Creek where we will stay tonight.

The drive to Banff and a little further to Canmore brought us back into Mountain time and into Alberta. We had been in British Columbia. The mountains surrounding our drive along their sides and in their valleys was spectacular. There were spots where their road even though we were on four lane were not all that great. Everybody and their brother rides bikes up here. They have been all along the roads and some times you have a hard time getting over away from them because of traffic coming up from behind or in front on 2 ways. They also like their motorcycles.

We entered back into Glacier National Park on the Canadian side for awhile. You can drive thru their National and Provinicial Parks but if you stop to hike or sightsee then you have to buy a day pass. We did stop at the Great Cedars Boardwalk but by the time we came out to the kiosk she had left and we didn't have to pay. Yeah!!! It was a wonderful walk. These cedars seem to reach the sky--they are so straight and tall. We stopped at Rogers Pass Summit in Glacier at the Visitors Center at 4400' and read some of their interpretative material. Years ago they discovered a huge Trilobite bed of fossils up in the mountains as well as another type but I can't remember the name.

The mountains here have a lot more loose material in them; they are just not solid rock and this shows up in their rivers. We crossed over Blaeberry River and it was the first dirty brown river I have seen and as we kept going the river beds were filling up with silt and forming sand bars all out in them. Later the rivers did get lighter colored but they were greenish milky colored. This is called "glacier flour" and it is due to the silt that washes down the mountains as the snow melt comes down.

We passed Golden, Alberta and on toward Town of Field (that is its name) and went up a steep curvy uphill grade for about a mile and a half--this was thru Kicking Horse Canyon and along Kicking Horse River which had that greenish look. The grade thru here gets so steep that back in the late 1800's and early 1900's they built a spiral railway. It goes into the mountain and creates a circle and then comes out the other end farther up or down---what a novel idea. If the train is long enough you can see both the front and back in both a tunnel entrance and an exit. We stopped and saw this but our train was about 4 or 5 cars short of seeing both.

Going down this four lane road both sides have high fences to protect the wildlife from getting out in the road. We saw a lot of cars stopped on the other side and as we passed we looked and their was a cinnamon brown bear grazing on the other side of the fence. What a treat! We left at 7am this morning because Marvin wanted to stop and go up in the Gondola in Banff which goes up to Sulphur Mountain. It was certainly well worth it. The day was perfect for this: sunny and not very windy and so clear. The gondola is glassed in and four people sit in it. The climb takes you from 2292' to 7486' and is spectacular. Some of the mountains came up like a table top sitting at a 45 degree angle and then we walked on up to a higher elevation to the very top--what a view!!!

We got gas and then came on into Spring Creek RV. Marvin and Dee went back into town to eat supper at the old Hotel in town but we stayed home and caught up with some of my blog.