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20050610 Lake Louise AB 45/72Cool, mostly cloudy. Picture Link
We scurried out in the morning and drove back into downtown Revelstoke BC to get fuel, because we found out there was no fuel available for some distance along our track.
Then we tested the truck by going up and down some more. Up a canyon next to the stream and the railroad track, over the top, down a canyon next to the stream and the railroad track. Repeat.
The country is beautiful, but the road needs help. Of course, it suffers from the bad winters and the work necessary to keep it open. After all, it is the TransCanada. It also goes through some terrible locations. Still, I think most of the Alaska Highway is in better condition than this stretch of road.
We traversed several construction sites that will make some things better. We crept through them and kept going.
Dolores finally made a wildlife sighting in Yoho National Park - a black bear cub in the ditch next to the road. Mommy must have been nearby and nervous. Then we both saw a clump of cars where the people were looking up the hill at a railroad track on which was a large black bear.
We reached Lake Louise around 1pm after setting our clocks back to the mountain time zone. We settled the trailer into the Banff National Park campground here (electric only). Then we toured the Lake Louise area, which isn't all that large.
Lake Louise, Alberta, has the lake of course - Lake Louise, named after a daughter of Queen Victoria. There's also a lake named Morraine Lake that rivals it for beauty. There's the Chateau at the lake (a resort). There's a crossroads with another resort and a small shopping center and two gas stations. The RCMP has a station. The old CP railroad station is a restaurant. There's a detail of support folks for the railroad. That's about it.
Lake Louise's summer season is not the peak season - winter is. The mountains around it have a total lift capacity of over 5,600 people per hour and a vertical slope of 2,200 feet. It's the biggest ski area in Canada.
We headed south to Banff down the Bow Valley Parkway, a slow trip but pretty. First we saw a couple of blacktail deer, then we found another clump of cars clustered around a pair of elk. Some dingdong walked most of the way around them at fairly close range, then shot off a flash picture of them that made them nervous enough to walk off.
In Banff, we found the same thing we found there last time. Lots of opportunities to spend money. We got off a postcard to our neighbor in PCB. We bought a few things at the local Safeway. Then we couldn't stand it anymore and left.
On the way back, we stopped at a photo turnout. I noticed the guy I'd pulled in front of was working on his truck-to-trailer electrical cable. I grabbed my little kit and walked back. He'd just bought the trailer in Calgary and made the mistake of letting the long cable flop over the tailgate and drag on the ground. We used some of my parts and some twisting together of leads and my electrical tape and his duct tape to put the leads back together, and a bungee cord plus some twist-ties to keep the cable off the road and snugged up to the hitch. He thanked me for the help and resumed his trip to Vernon BC.
We continued our trip behind his truck and trailer, but he was a little faster than we wanted to go so we only saw him when he was slowed down by something. One of his slowdowns was for another clump of cars, this time watching two elk right at the side of the road. He didn't stop and neither did I, since there were cars going 115kph (~70mph) down the road - an excellent chance for an accident.
Several miles later we encountered an RCMP car with lights and siren headed that way. I hope nothing serious happened and that he was only going there to clear the road of elks and people.
Back at the campground, we stowed the purchases in the trailer and took a walk along the river. It's really rushing with snowmelt. It's teal green in color, as are the lakes like Lake Louise, caused by glacier sediment. It looked cold and not at all the sort of stream you'd like to dive into.
I finally remembered that it's easier to fuel the truck when the trailer is not attached, so I went out and filled up for tomorrow's trip to Jasper, 143 miles up the Icefields Parkway. En route, we'll stop at a glacier and take a trip out onto it.
The time zone change has screwed up our internal clocks again. It's nearly midnight, but the body is just starting to get tired. Time for bed.
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