I know…what happened to the other days between Day 17 and today….well, we arrived in Kelowna and enjoyed a few down days. Larry and Jerry headed to the west coast riding along the Sunshine Coast and up to Long Beach and Ucluelet so that Jerry could dip his toes in the Pacific Ocean completing his quest to go coast to coast….a few more down days spent with friends we haven’t seen in a while and now it is time to take our coast to coast back to the coast.
This morning we left Kelowna and headed for the TCH which takes us through the fabulous Rocky Mountains. We also have a couple of stops in mind. First stop is at the site of the “Last Spike”. The site is located at Craigellachie with the correct pronunciation of this noted inside the store. Larry put on his best Scottish accent and seemed to impress the young lady at the counter.
Here you can purchase a spike of your own…actual spikes, that have been pulled from refurbished railways…these ones from Jasper I believe.
There is also a monument commemorating 100 years since the last spike was driven on November 7, 1885. The monument has a stone from each province imbedded in the monument, including a jade stone from BC and St. George Granite from Bonny River representing New Brunswick.
Our next stop was Rogers Pass in Glacier National Park. This is the Canadian Glacier National Park as we have visited the US one back in 2016. A stop here offers a fabulous views of the glaciers that you can take in without the risk of being run over and running off the edge of a mountain.
The next stop was at the spiral tunnels. These are railway tunnels built into the mountains where the train enters at a lower level and exits above where the train entered….there are two of these such tunnels and we were lucky enough to be able to see the train enter the tunnel, exit the tunnel and then travel under the highway we were watching from. The second tunnel is on the other side of the highway. What makes it so interesting is that the trains here are exceptionally long, so the train was still entering the tunnel as we watched it exit the tunnel and make a second turn to travel along just below us. It was still visible in all three areas when we left. The picture above is of the tunnel exit. The entrance wasn’t that visible until the train came along. At one point the same train looked like it was travelling in two separate directions.
It was a day of firsts, although not our first trip through here. We travelled through on our way home in 2016. We had stopped at Rogers Pass but the other two stops were new to us and pretty exciting.
In between the stops we enjoyed amazing views of the mountains, the valleys and glacier lakes that are the colour of green sea glass. The beauty is undeniable as is the scale of it all. It is hard not to feel like an ant in the land of giants, and it will be difficult to ever look at our east coast mountains and know that while they are mountains to us, they can’t compete with the size and beauty of the Rockies….but our ocean is pretty freakin’ cool!
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