Well it's a hot day here in Montreal. Hot and muggy. When they give you the weather here they tell you what temperature it is as well as the 'temperature ressentie' which is much more accurate since it is the temperature that one feels when considering humidity or wind chill etc. Today it is 24 C but feels like 30 C. It has been raining pretty heavily this morning, adding to the mugginess between showers. I guess the weather here is quite extreme - in winter you freeze and in summer you melt. Unlike Vancouver, Montreal is not a coastal city surrounded by mountains and ocean that help to keep the weather mild. BUT, I digress... today I have promised to dig into the memory banks to tell you about the Rocky Mountains and everything after that.
Because the Rockies are so vast and I don't drive, and even if I did I wouldn't have known where to begin unless I had done tons of research beforehand, I decided to book myself on a Bigfoot Tour. Bigfoot is part of the Moose Travel Network here and is modelled on the Oz Experience and I believe the Kiwi Experience. Basically it's affordable, casual, allows you some degree of freedom, provides a social setting, and takes the hassle out of organising everything yourself... they even pre-book your accommodation for you. OK, now I'm starting to sound like an informercial but seriously, it does work really well if you get a good group which fortunately I did! So before I left Australia I had been planning on booking myself on the 12 day West pass but I am glad I didn't... firstly, the 6 days that we did were completely action-packed and felt more like 3 weeks, secondly when people are hopping on and off the bus to stay longer in certain places you don't really get much opportunity to really bond with new friendships.
So I decided on the 6 day Hoodapus tour after deciding mainly that I didn't have much desire to spend two days in Whistler which is Aussie and Kiwi mecca. Yep, 3 things you get a lot of on the West Coast are Aussies, Kiwis and Poms so don't plan on being a novelty there!
Lauren, 1 of my roommates from the HI Downtown in Vancouver, happened to be doing the same tour so at 8.20 am on Day 1 we got picked up from the hostel and set off on our way to pick up the rest of the merry bunch. The great thing on this trip was that everyone on it was travelling alone so open to meeting new people and with enough personality to
carry their own. Oh let me add an aside here because having said that, I have met two strange characters on the way who were also lone travellers but really didn't fit the mould: 1 of Nicqui's rommates in Hawaii spent all his days and nights reading and barely spoke two words the whole time we were there he was so painfully shy; the other is a blind English guy I met in Quebec City... blind and half deaf and travelling alone. Unfortunately, due to his partial deafness he did not hear me asking him what it was like to travel alone when you're blind! It kinda cracked me up though that he kept saying "yeah and I've seen Montreal and (insert various place names here) I'm going to see Labrador and Halifax (insert other various place names here)" and I'm thinking 'yeah right, you ain't seen shit and don't think you're going to either!'. I am still dead curious about the whole travelling when you're blind experience.
So Day 1, who did we end up with: Tyler was our driver and tour guide; 1 Japanese girl whose name I cannot recall and who left us in Banff; 1 other Japanese girl Rumiko who was a real trooper especially considering she was only 19, could barely speak English and was afraid of heights; Julie, an Aussie girl who'd been travelling for about 4 years and left us in Lake Louise to go and join her boyfriend of 2 weeks - she was a bit annoying in a pushy camp counsellor way so I was quite glad she didn't do the whole trip with us or she would have done my head in; Lauren, as I mentioned previously, who was doing a student exchange in Toronto from York where she is finishing a Chemistry major; Alistair, a Kiwi I cannot tell you much about except that he was a really nice guy who gave me one of his kick-ass anti-inflammatories one day when I had a bad knee flare-up; Simon, a 37 year-old divorce from Melbourne who I believe was taking a break to travel around North America; Jeremy (Jezza) a 24 year old on 7 months leave from the Australian Navy and on his way back home after travelling through Europe and I think some of the States; Huw (Howie) from England somewhere I can't quite recall where but mortally funny guy who had just spent a few months in Australia and NZ and is currently in the States I believe; and last but not least, Philippa (flippa) who is from Wellington and who you will probably hear me mentioning quite a bit since we have remained good friends because she's a keeper! She is currently working as an accountant in Vancouver.
Eeek! If I continue to supply you with so much detail this is going to turn into a 5 part saga and I will never get to the end of it!
So on Day 1 we pretty much did a lot of driving - 540 km to be exact. We drove a total of 2610 km over the whole trip and most of that was probably on days 1 and 5. Day 1 was also marked by a lot of 'van games' designed to get us all in the spirit of fun and to get to know one another - I would say it worked very well and some great laughs were had by all. The first scenic stop was Bridal Veil falls so called because, you guessed it, they look like a bride's veil (please note that photos of most of what I will be describing are available for viewing in online photo albums so if you do not have a
link to these please let me know by posting a comment or sending me an email).
We picked up some lunch at The Blue Moose in this crazy little town called Hope which has two claims to fame: it is the chainsaw carving capital of the world (*ahem*) and is also the place where they filmed a lot of Rambo and Cliffhanger. Yes, I have seen the Rambo bridge! hehe
We stopped for lunch at a place called Alexandra Bridge which was the first link from East to West over the Fraser River. Whilst there I was standing in a grove when the Rocky Mountaneer (a train) came by and you couldn't see it through the trees so with the sound bouncing off the other side of the mountain it sounded quite like the whole world
was coming undone and it was pretty damn impressive.
Next stop was Kamloops Lake where not only it started to rain but I also lost a whole roll of film so we had to go back to find it since it contained a lot of Hawaii photos etc. All ten of us piled out of the van to scour the area in the rain - thank God for Jez who found it!
Apart from getting to know everyone, the highlight of Day 1 was definitely where we stopped to spend the night - the Squilax Hostel at Shuswap Lake. All we knew about it before we got there was that the woman who runs it is umm let's say 'quirky', that we would be having a group meal of bison burgers for dinner, pancakes for breakfast, and that we all had to sign up for a chore on arrival. The rest was a surprise and surprised we were. The woman who runs the hostel also runs the General Store by the side of the road, accessible by car or by boat. So we all piled into the General Store to check in and sign up for our chores and be given all manner of other directives. Then it was off to get our stuff out of the van and into the cabooses and make our beds before we had to start the dinner chores. Yes, we slept in old train cabooses. Each caboose had 3 sets of bunk beds, a small kitchen and living area, and a small toilet. I think it took us a little while to accept the lack of basic luxuries but honestly by the time we had lived it most of us agreed that Squilax was definitely one of the best experiences of the trip. I was put in a caboose with the 2 Japanese girls, a young girl from Quebec who I got to speak French with and practice deciphering the Quebecois accent, and a German grand-mother from Vancouver who was quite the superwoman given she would have been in her mid-sixties and was cycling through the Rockies WITH a backpack strapped to her bicycle!
Flippa, Lauren and I were signed up for salad-making but still had some time to kill before we had to report for duty so we decided to go and check out the beaver house on the lake. Apparently there was a Papa and a Mama and a couple of baby beavers, alas we didn't get to see any so it was strike out for Canadian Wildlife viewing on Day 1.
Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you they keep llamas at the hostel to mow the lawns and they grow their own fruit and veggies and they compost and recycle and all that so as much as possible they try to live off the land.
So we prepared a dinner of bison burgers and salad and after eating, as the temperature started to drop, we all sat around a big campfire. Another highlight of that night was the Native Sweatlodge we did later on in the evening. I was hesitant to participate at first partly because of my knee problems and partly because I get claustrophobic: the sweat lodge was approximately 1 metre high max and 2 metres in diameter with the ground covered in leaves and branches and the whole centre obviously taken up by the heated rocks that really does not leave much space and somehow we managed to pile 14 people in there. I managed to position myself by the entrance so I wouldn't panic. I really don't think I could have handled being in the centre. As it is, I am really glad I did not miss out on the experience. We ended up sitting in there for 20 minutes and working up a real sweat. Afterwards everyone ran out and jumped in the freezing cold lake then returned to sit by the campfire and dry off. We roasted marshmallows for smores (roasted marshmallow and slab of chocolate between two biscuits) and talked and laughed into the night. I needed 4 blankets to keep warm in bed when I finally got there!
On Day 2 we got up to coffee and fresh home-made banana and strawberry pancakes *yum* after which we hit the road for another packed day. We stopped at Shuswap Lake for a group photo and then went on to a Go-Karting place where some of the guys and girls raced around the track for 15 minutes. Next stop was Craigellachie, also known as 'The
Last Spike' because that is where East met West when they built the Trans-Pacific Canadian Railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. After that we went on to Revelstoke, over the Columbian River and from Revelstoke National Park to Glacier National Park where we stopped at the peak of Rogers Pass, 1330 m above sea level and lots of gophers running around all over the place. We then went on to Kicking Horse Valley, to the Natural Bridge in Yoho National Park and on the way there I saw my first bit of Canadian wildlife: a small brown bear grazing behind the road guard. Then as we made our way to Lake Louise in Banff National Park we saw some elk! We dropped Julie off in Lake Louise then proceeded on to Banff where we were to spend the night. The Banff HI is like 5 star luxury as far as hostelling is concerned, it's very nice indeed. Flippa, Lauren and I had a room to ourselves and the beds, pillows and covers were oh so comfortable. We didn't want to leave! The hostel is more expensive than standard... I think we paid somewhere between 30 and 35 for the night whereas the hostels in Vancouver and most other places are 20 dollars a night on average, but the money was well worth it. I believe the HI in Lake Louise is even more expensive but just as nice. The night of Day 2 was marked by an "incident" in the kitchen. Because we got there so late - around 9 pm I think - we decided to get a simple group meal and settled on frozen pizzas, garlic bread and salad. Of course it didn't end up so simple because Jez decided to put the garlic bread and one of the pizzas on the bottom element in the oven so the whole kitchen almost caught on fire and the fire alarm went off and our building had to be evacuated! Needless to say we got quite a few dirty looks especially considering some of us could not stop laughing and Jez evacuates the building with the offending pizza and garlic bread on a bread board, stuffing his face. I kinda did feel bad when I saw a little girl being dragged out into the cold by her parents when she had obviously been fast asleep in her bed.
And that brings us to Day 3. We kick-started the day with a breakfast stop in downtown Banff followed by a shopping stop for lunch and snack supplies, then on to Moraine Lake which was completely under the ocean 560 million years ago and so it is surrounded by slate rock that still bears the marks of millions of years of tide fluctuations etc. On the day we saw it, the lake was half empty and half frozen as you can tell by the pictures. Tyler said he had never seen the lake that empty and it was a true reflection of just how much the Rockies are suffering from the drought.
After Moraine it was on to Hector Lake and Crowfoot Glacier which in some parts had a 50 metre thickness of ice!
Then on to Bow Lake which runs into Bow River to the Atlantic and it was pretty much all iced up. Day 3 lunch stop was at Mistaya Canyon which was absolutely gorgeous - just look at the photos! After that, the Big Bend and Parker's Ridge where Tyler got the mad idea of hiking up to the top. 2.5 kilometre uphill hike through snow that was often hip deep. I think that was a little irresponsible of him considering no one had the right equipment, experience or clothes for such a hike but most people made it and though it was gruelling they enjoyed the experience. I personally had never really walked in snow before and found it very difficult especially since my knees were lacking in the strength required to pull myself out of deep snow I'd fallen into. I figured if I made it to the top at all there was no guarantee I could make it back down and would be slowing everyone down so I opted out about a third of the way up. Rumiko went all the way up in shorts! She had burns on her legs for days. Everyone was drenched and tired after the hike so apart from stopping briefly at Sunwatap Falls we pushed on to Jasper National Park where we were to be spending the night at the only hostel in the area with running water. I managed to offend the guy at reception by basically telling him his taste in music sucked - I am not so diplomatic at the best of times let alone when I am tired. The hostel at Jasper was ok. It basically consisted of 2 big dorms, one for men and one for women. Each dorm could sleep about 70 people in bunk beds. The women's one was ok but imagine 70 men in a dorm! Apparently it was a nightmare with all the snoring. Aside from that when we got back from having dinner in town, we sat around the campfire and talked for a while. We met a small group of students from Saskatchewan and was kinda cool to talk to young people who came from a small rural town about an hour out of Prince Albert.
I think I need a break from writing now especially considering I am really straining my memory! :)
I will try to write more tomorrow if not later
xxx
