Well, I think winter has arrived in this part of the world.
Reminds me that I should be planning the next trip south to where there is no snow!

But, alas I was still working last week and the snow was here.

My crazy day started with a run north of Lake Louise on the Icefields Parkway towards Jasper. I had heard that it snowed a lot there overnight and that there were some vehicles in the ditch awaiting tows.

The first few kms were OK, but the snow accumulation quickly built up and was in the 15-20 cm range after a while. My work truck is one of the few that has survived the down-size, two wheel drive 'tonka truck' move that seems to have taken over the government. So I was getting along fine, even though my 3/4 ton's belly was dragging in the snow in a few places.
I located the first vehicle in the ditch on it's side, but the people were out and the tow truck was attempting to get the wheels to the bottom where they belonged. I found another pair of vehicles and their occupants who had spent the night in a roadside pull off, now completely covered in snow. I continued on to the Warden station at the junction of highway 11, where I 'took possession' of a guy who had caught a ride there - to initially report the accident and request a tow. He had been well cared for and fed at the station, as is customary! (I know some readers from Ontario who are smiling now)

I then headed back south with this guy and met his party who had been successfully extricated from the roadside woods by Sammy's Towing. On the way south I checked another abandoned (or ice climbers?) vehicle on the side of the road, looked into the closed Waterfowl campground, retrieved a 'bump' sign that had gotten knocked over by the snowplow on it's first run north, and chatted with a bunch of excited skiers who were about to either enjoy a first run of the year, or trash their skis; or both.

On my trek south I came across another vehicle that had just gone into the ditch a few minutes prior. The driver did not speak any languages that I do, so I gave him a ride back to the nearest phone, so he could make his own towing arrangements. There is NO cell coverage in this area to the chagrin of almost everyone who discovers this fact AFTER they have run out of gas or hit the ditch!
Anyway, I was nicely back in town when I realized that my cell phone was not on my belt where I was sure I had place it earlier in the morning. Great! Just great.
After the usual pocket-patting, truck searching and memory replay, the phone still had not shown up. So I was pretty sure it had fallen off into 15cm of snow on the road in one of about 10 places I had gotten out that morning, and had since been blasted into the woods by the next plow to go by. And I was expecting a call!

Rather than have lunch, I decided that I would at least make a futile trip back up the road, and look in the likely spots - that I could remember.

The start of the road north was starting to improve, so everyone ignores the flashing lights on the sign that indicates the road condition is only one notch above closed; POOR.

I soon stopped at the vehicle whose driver I had earlier given a ride to town and poked about in the snow there, knowing the chances of finding anything were slim to nil. They were nil.

As I was just headed back north I observed a pickup truck coming towards me. Backwards - sideways - forwards - sideways - backwards, you get the idea. Snow was spraying everywhere.

Wow; before my eyes the vehicle hit the ditch and proceeded to roll - ending up on it's roof.
I made a quick call to dispatch in Banff to send out the 'troops' - which consists of the fire department, the RCMP, and some more wardens, and an ambulance. This surely would prevent me from continuing the search for my phone. What would I get to replace it?

Fortunately, I was able to get to the vehicle in seconds and cut some seat belts, and after ensuring there were no injuries to the occupants, managed to get them out and got them into my truck where they would have some defence against the next out-of-control vehicle to arrive.
Eventually the troops all arrived and took over control of the scene. This allowed me to free myself and put up some warning signs on the approach to slow down the speeders and hopefully prevent further carnage.
When I stopped to re-check the 'bump' sign that I had earlier moved, I grabbed a snow-brush to dig with, when 'who woulda thunkit', there was my phone covered in the fresh snow. It was not even melted or soaked - and is once again working just fine!

But the day was not over. I saw one of the snow plows coming down the road on the southbound leg and I was about to move my accident warning sign briefly off the shoulder so the plow could properly clean the road there. But the road and the shoulder and everything was pretty much ice, so before I knew it, even my good 4x4 had slid its behind to a position perpendicular to the edge of the road while trying to move out of the way of the plow. Even the 4wd was no match for the ice, so I backed off the road into an area that I hoped would have some gravel underneath and provide some traction for a run at the road. After a few minutes of 'driving' around in this area, it became clear that in spite of any direction I gave the vehicle, it was inevitably moving downhill towards the trees and some ugly rocks, and a small drop-off.
Fortunately, my good truck comes equipped with good tire chains, so I shovelled away the snow and put them on - making sure that my cell phone stayed in a safe location inside! Even with one set of chains on it was SO slippery that the front wheels pretty much refused to steer, so I had to do some creative driving to make it back to the road surface. But hey, I hadn't really hit the ditch, I hadn't needed a tow or any assistance, and more importantly, there were no photos!










But because of all the other action this day, the only pictures that I did have time to take, were a couple shots of the truck that I had watched hit the ditch and roll.







Later on in the afternoon, I was back on the road for the third time - but in this case it was a planned, uneventful trip to Jasper for a week-long course

On the ranch road.





Nothing but work, this week.

But if you have to work, it would be hard to find a more scenic spot to do it.

We were out at the historic Ya Ha Tinda ranch on the boundary of Banff National Park, and west of Sundre, Alberta.













The ranch is operated by Parks Canada.

As described on the Parks Canada website:

The Ya Ha Tinda covers 3,945 hectares, running 27 km along the north bank of the Red Deer River. Approximately one third of the ranch area is natural grassland and two thirds is mixed forest. This productive montane area has an abundance of wildlife including grizzly bear, wolf, cougar, moose, deer, and bighorn sheep. Today the area is a major winter range for elk, with about 1,000 elk wintering in the area.

The Ya Ha Tinda is private property owned and managed by Parks Canada. It is not a National Park. This ranch is the only federally operated working horse ranch in Canada. Horses are wintered and trained here to be used as working horses for patrolling and protecting Canada’s Western National Parks. As an active working ranch, staff regularly use tractors, trucks, quads and other equipment on the property.

The ranch has a long and varied history:

In the early 1900's the Brewster Brothers Transfer Company obtained a grazing lease in the area. By 1908 they were raising and breaking horses here for their guiding and outfitting business. Horses were wintered in the area and trailed to Banff and Lake Louise for the summer.

The Ya Ha Tinda ranch area was formerly within the boundaries of Rocky Mountains National Park. The boundary changed a number of times before the present day Banff National Park Boundary was established. In 1917, National Parks took over the area as a winter range, breeding and training facility for park horses.

Regular staff at the ranch were short-handed, so a bunch of us went out there last week to assist with some big jobs.

Large numbers of elk winter on the ranch, and increasingly, spend much of the summer there as well. Research is ongoing, which requires that elk be trapped on occasion to be radio collared and studied. One of our jobs was to move a large elk trapping complex about a mile up the valley to a more suitable location. Much of the trap can be taken apart, but a large portion was moved in a single piece, requiring some heavy equipment and expertise.

All went well with the move - that is until a freak gust of wind caught us all by surprise, and blew several sections of 10' high fence down on us.


So the following day in dust storm conditions rivalling those of the dirty thirties, we put in posts for a new riding arena - right where the end of the rainbow appears in the picture that I 'borrowed' from the Parks web site.

It was far too dirty to risk a camera during the fence building process. Any of us could have started a garden with the dirt in our ears, and noses, and ...



As well as home to hundreds of horses and elk, the ranch also supports a population of bighorn sheep - who obviously like to visit with the horses as they take turns at the salt block in the main yard.
















































































Location of the ranch headquarters, for your Google Earth exploration is
51.753671 -115.58273

Google Earth screen shot - looking west into Banff National Park.

Found a couple of photos on the cutting room floor that were missed from the last post. These were taken on the beach at Kokanee Creek Provincial Park on the West Arm of Kootenay Lake.







































The park is 19 km east of Nelson, and 15 Km west of Balfour. The park provided a welcome overnight stopover after a visit to Ainsworth Hot Springs further north.

I also took some photos of Columbia Lake near Canal Flats and some of the signs at the highway viewpoint. I was pleased to note that all the photos on the "Friends of the Columbia Wetlands" were credited to Hans Fuhrer, who I used to work with at Kootenay National Park.









It was dark when I reached Lussier Hot Springs, which is now within Whiteswan Lake Provincial Park, so I did not take any photos of the actual springs, but through the wonder of the modern internet, I am able to provide you of a daylight shot of where I sat enjoying the stars that night.







Lussier Hot Springs









On departure the next day, I took some photos along the access road. Portions of the road are not for the faint-hearted. Some sections are one-lane, with a serious vertical drop to the river below. Both logging trucks and some sort of rock trucks were using the road from about midnight on, making the one-lane cliff sections high on the pucker factor. The trucks all use two-way radios to avoid colliding with each other, but the tourists are at their mercy. I had my scanner going, so at least I knew where they were, if not vice versa. I only stopped on wide sections for these photos.


Logging road leading to Lussier Hot Springs and Whiteswan Lake Provincial Park.












On the way back through Sinclair canyon, near Radium Hot springs in Kootenay National Park, I snapped a shot of the mirror used to see around the corner in the canyon. If you click on the photo for a larger view, you should be able to see the camper in the mirror.

Highway mirror at Sinclair Canyon near Radium.

But prior to that, I parked in the village of Radium Hot Springs, where I knew there was a web cam in operation. So I got out of the truck and posed in front of it for the photo you see here.

Web cam shot of me and the camper in Radium Hot Springs village.

If you had been watching the web cam link above at the time, you would have seen me 'live'! Of course, I had the laptop in the truck and access to nearby wi-fi signal, so I was able to see this shot from the driver's seat while parked there. Pretty weird, huh? But it gets better.

Since I had wi-fi signal, and had been away from home for a few days, I decided to check my e-mail and have a look at my own web cam - which looks out my front window at home. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you will remember shots of deep snow banks and snowblowers from this cam - while I was on a Mexican beach camping for free. But I digress.
The web cam image is usually pretty static and mundane and boring. Imagine my surprise to see 3-4 people, ladders and gear sitting on my front sidewalk! Turns out they were there to clean my chimney. So, the next shot is a screen-shot from my laptop at the time, showing me in my truck in front of the Radium web cam, and my home cam on the other half of the screen - at the same time!








Screen shot of Radium and home web cam at the same time.

Web cam shot from home.

Till next time ...

Photos of Slocan Lake at New Denver, BC. Google Maps link.















It's time for your history and geography lesson, mixed in with a whole bunch more photos from my last trip into the east Kootenays.

Canal Flats is the centre of this story, but don't even consider erasing the 'C' on their highway sign!


Canal Flats sits just south of 16km long Columbia Lake, which is the headwaters of the mighty Columbia river.
It flows for more than 1960 kilometres (1200 miles) before reaching the Pacific ocean at Astoria, Oregon. It drains a 259,000 square mile basin that includes areas in seven US states, as well as parts of British Columbia.
From it's humble beginnings at Canal Flats, it flows northward for over 420 kilometres, past Invermere and Golden, where it enters Kinbasket lake which almost reaches Valemount to the north. Then it swings southward, through Revelstoke into the Arrow Lakes (see previous post), and south to Castlegar (*), and Trail, then into the US for the remainder of it's course.

Coincidentally, the Kootenay River, which originates to the north in Kootenay National Park, flows southward right past Canal Flats in the opposite direction from the Columbia - which is headed north. It then flows southward for 200 Km into Montana, before coming back north into Canada. It flows north past Creston (home of Kokanee beer) and into Kootenay Lake before heading west where it flows to Castlegar (*), ... and joins the Columbia! So the two rivers pass within 1.2 km of each other, then actually travel hundreds of kilometres in opposite directions, before deciding to join.

That's it for geography, now for the history. Because of the proximity of the two rivers, and the importance of rivers in early transportation, a canal was constructed between the two rivers.
The canal was also part of an attempt in the 1880's to divert water from the Kootenay into the Columbia, thus lowering the level of Kootenay Lake to reclaim thousands of hectares of valuable farm land.
But the plan was abandoned after only two boats passed through the canal and lock system because of fears of flooding of the Canadian Pacific railroad and farmland around Golden.

And now for the modern portion of the story. The two rivers join in Castlegar, right by Zuckerberg island - which I visited when I passed through that area. I did not erase the 'C' on the Canal Flats sign!

So, .... I too went southward past Trail along the Columbia river, where I watched a number of modern voyageurs, in brightly coloured plastic kayaks playing in a wave just north of the border.




Kayakers on Columbia south of Trail, BC.




At the border, I turned east along the Pend Oreille river which flows out of Washington State, past a dam just a few hundred meters from the border. Though the river only flows in Canada for about 25km, there are an additional two more hydro dams in the Canadian section.

As you drive east from Waneta (south of Trail), there is a dam right where the Pend Oreille flows into the Columbia, then the next dam is the 7 mile (pictured).




Seven Mile Dam on Pend Oreille river south of Trail, BC.




When I used to live in Trail around the time of the dinosaurs, I used to come down here with my jurassic gold pan and find a few flakes in the tributaries in the area.

A large forest fire came out of the States this fall and burned a lot of the bush and riverbank in this area.

Fire along Pend Oreille river that came from the US.











The road has been blocked several times over the years from both natural and man-made barriers. There are two man-made barriers that have simply been covered with dirt so you can drive over!













The road ends at Nelway, which is a two-horse town that consists of a border crossing, and the two horses.








Canada Customs - Nelway, BC.





Leaving the border crossing at Nelway, the route was back east, over the Salmo-Creston summit, or Kootenay Pass as it is officially known. The pass starts at about 2100' on the Salmo side, tops out around 5823' before dropping to 1700' in Creston. If you prefer meters, click on the pass profile pic.




If you prefer a live pic from the pass, there is a BC Highways web cam to be seen - here.


Next blog entry - visit to Lussier Hot Springs and more web cams.

Fall has certainly arrived (in Lake Louise, at least), with frost every night if the sky is clear. I had been keeping a light bulb in the camper at night to keep it from freezing, but had given that up, drained the tanks and put anti-freeze in the water lines. But it is not this cold everywhere, so when the opportunity came to go camping again in a warmer area, it did not take much convincing to reverse the process.

On the first night, I drove highway #23 south of Revelstoke and camped in the provinciaol campsite at Shelter Bay ferry terminal.



View Larger Map












Departing Shelter Bay ferry terminal.







In the morning, I caught the free ferry to continue southward.

We shared space on the boat with at least three loaded logging trucks.








Backup ferry at Shelter Bay.














Load of logs on the ferry.














Big logs!










The backwoods hot spring on the St. Leon road was apparently closed, so it was decided to mortgage the farm and pay for swimming and camping at the commercial Halcyon Hot Springs!









Had a dip both evening and morning, and spent some time walking the grounds and looking at some historic buildings.

Later in the morning, during a quick stop in Nakusp for some coffee and goodies, a local cat decided he would like to join the expedition by jumping on the hood of the truck!

Luckily Harley could not get his paws on the little guy.







Cat prowler in Nakusp.







Both Halcyon and Nakusp are on the east side of the Upper Arrow Lake.

They grow big trees in some parts of B.C., but I did not know that they grew big rhubarb as well. Check out these specimens!



















From Halcyon hot springs, it was then off to Ainsworth Hot Springs. Ainsworth is south of Kaslo on the west shore of Kootenay Lake in the Purcell Mountains. The natural, outdoor springs feature a unique horseshoe shaped cave that takes you into the mountainside, while wading in the hot water with 100% humidity!


View Larger Map








The cave entrance at Ainsworth hot springs.








The remainder of this trip will be detailed in the next post - and it involves yet another hot spring in the east Kootenay's.

Lastly, I have included a short video (as a test) that I made a week or so ago when taking a horse back to the ranch for the winter. I led Foxy a short distance to her winter pasture behind the truck.


Foxy and friends.