Last Day at the Rockies

All things come to an end, and today is the last we will be in the Rockies. So we got up early to visit Emerald Lake. We had to negotiate mud and roots, but there were also large trees and moss.

It was very foggy, and at first we couldn’t see the lake at all. But gradually, as we walked around it, the fog lifted. By the end of the walk, we could even see mountains.

Then we visited Takakkaw Falls - the second highest falls in Canada

And Natural Bridge

It was raining, so we drove up the Icefields Parkway because we couldn’t go on another walk.

Lake Louise, Plain of the Six Glaciers

This morning, we were at Lake Louise just after 7am so we could park in the car park and walk to the Plain of the Six Glaciers. There were already crowds at the lake

But not the crowds we saw when we returned.

The walk goes along the edge of the lake

And continues up a valley along the edge of a glacial stream

Until you see a number of glaciers

If you’re lucky, you may see the glacier calving and the resultant avalanche cloud.

We walked along some narrow tracks above the valley 

Which had the glacier in it, covered by gravel (so it’s a moraine)

Near the end of the track is a tea house, where we had lunch 

We saw some wildlife too

And some moss

Burgess Shale

Today we visited one of the foremost fossil sites in the world - the Burgess Shale. There are three guided tours that you can do of this extensive site - Mount Stephen, the Walcott Quarry or the Stanley Glacier. We chose to visit the Stanley Glacier, which has fewer fossils than the other parts of the site, but is less steep. It has rained more than usual this year so the other tours have sometimes been abandoned after people have fallen on the way to the fossils.

Shortly into the walk, we crossed the second bridge, and saw the Burgess Shale layers far up the cliff. It’s the layers touched by the top of the last tree on the left and the side branch of the tree on the right - the layers look darker than the bigger layers surrounding them.

When we were close enough we saw the glacier and the waterfall (it freezes in winter and people do ice climbing here). We were going to the big rock in the centre of the field of rocks.

The day was lovely - sunny and warm, but not hot, and we spread out to look among the rocks that had fallen down, eat our lunch and enjoy the site. 

We found these fossils amongst the rocks. The fossils themselves are black.

Were shown reproductions of some other fossils found in the Burgess Shale 

And had a visitor.

We went to the visitors centre, where we saw more fossils 

And a pretty bird 

As we went along the Icefields Parkway, we stopped at the double spiral, where two loops have been carved into the mountains to allow trains to climb up. We were fortunate that a train was in the nearer spiral at the time. You can see the back section entering the upper part of the loop tunnel, while the front is coming out at the bottom.

After we were back, I took this picture from where we’re staying.

Calgary

We caught the plane from Winnipeg to Calgary. There was cloud cover for most of the trip, but I saw the ground at both the beginning

And at Calgary. It seemed overwhelmed by the mountains in the background - almost as if there was a cardboard cutout of mountains where the horizon should be.

The airport had someone singing on the carousel, and people in cowboy hats.

As we drove to Lake Louise, the scenery became more beautiful.

Winnipeg

We visited a friend in Winnipeg. I was quite surprised at how pretty it was. Elms in the streets complimented the early 20th century houses.

Saskatchewan and More Train

The train was running late by the time our second day started. It goes at glacial speed in the north (permafrost doesn’t make a good rail base, and the northern part of the railway was washed out in 2015 and didn’t start running again until late last year). But they cut short our stay in Thompson to the minimum to make up time. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough, so we had to make an extended stop in The Pas to rest the driver, and left there five hours late. 

We had lost the majority of our fellow passengers at Thompson and were left with some really hard core train buffs. One of them had inveigled his family into traveling on the train. He practically runs the local railway museum. He and his father collected every single different type of Queensland cane train carriage, and have 200 metres of shunting track so they can show off the trains.

Another pair left the train when we went into Saskatchewan and stopped at Canora. 

The son had managed to talk to the engine driver at Thompson and was invited to see the engine room at The Pas (where we stopped at about 2am). The next day he was describing it as the experience of a lifetime. After they left the train, they chased it, and stopped at several crossings to take photos. They eventually stopped when we crossed back into Manitoba.

Shortly before we left Manitoba we started to see crops. 

The other people were quite surprised when we reached Hudson Bay (the first town in Saskatchewan).

But we were still seeing a lot of forest - sometimes forest on one side of the line and crops on the other.

We came back to Manitoba, and we still weren’t in true prairie country.

By the time we reached Dauphin, the train was racing along. It went faster with each mile, whereas, at first, they had told us that butterflies went faster than the train. Dauphin had an ornate station and church. By then we were in true prairie.

After that, it grew dark. We reached Winnipeg at 10:30pm - hours before we expected to, even though we were almost 6 hours late.