Trestles and Fruit in British Columbia

We drove from Kokanee Creek Provincial Park to Kelowna through the back roads. We wanted to soak in some hot springs, so stopped in Nakusp (a 10 km detour up a canyon) to enjoy a lovely hot spring in the trees.  We had reserved campsites at a lovely RV park on the outskirts of Kelowna which abutted a greenway and was close to the Kettle Valley RR Trestle Rail-to-Trail.  The RV Park had lovely flowers, organic vegies, chickens (to whom we fed our scraps), free range eggs, etc.  The next morning we decided to walk on the Trestles of the KVR.  Local supporters convinced the provincial government to turn the railroad line into a park just in time for a huge fire which destroyed several of
the trestles.  Local volunteers worked to rebuild the trestles.  You can rent bicycles to ride the 12 km, but we walked about 4 km round trip to see about five of the trestles.  I was struck by the benches along the way which had imitated the trestles.  









This is the tallest trestle on the line.  We did not go that far, but could see it across the valley.












Here you see some of the rock walls that were used as fill.












View of three trestles.













In the afternoon we went to an artisan goat cheese company and tasted wonderful cheese and ate paninis and goat milk gelato and then visited four wineries and tasted wine.  At this winery there was a three-hole, very short disc golf course.  The rain relented just enough for Bob and Joe Wiatt to play the course twice.













The Okanagan Valley was in the midst of its apple harvest.  One of the wineries was in a fruit shed mainly used for apples and making hard cider.  We stopped at numerous fruit stands as we made our way to Manning Provincial Park to buy fresh fruit and vegetables and to eat samosas.  There were all sorts of apple varieties that I had never tried.  We also bought several bottles of Okanagan wine.  We drove to Manning Provincial Park, which is just north of the North Cascades National Park and just below the summit.  It was cool and rainy.  We parked the RVs and took off to Hope to visit the Othello tunnels (also on the KVR branch).  The Coquilla branch of the KVR was what connected the Canadian Pacific RR to the coast.  It went through Coquilla Canyon where they built four tunnels.  They too have been turned into a rails-to-trails walk.  The rain relented while we walked and we returned to our cool trailers.  When we awoke it had frozen over night.  Fall and winter are definitely on their way.  We have had lots of rain since we got to Glacier National Park, with the occasional sunny day.  On the way to Hope we passed the Hope slide (1985 or so), which replaced the Frank slide as the largest slide in Canada, though it didn't kill very many people or destroy the highway and railroad like the Frank slide did.


























We took the ferry to Vancouver Island and drove to Helen and Bill's house.  The fishermen got up at 4:30 a.m. the next morning to fish for salmon on the west shore in the Pacific.  They didn't catch anything, but had a grand time on a glorious day.  Helen and I went to walk on the Kinsel Trestle, the tallest trestle in North America.  It too is part of a rails-to-trails project.






As we walked down the trail we came upon this rocking horse with a hand-written invitation to ride it and hand-written requests to keep dogs on leash to protect the free-range chickens.

The next day we went out in a light rain to put out prawn and crab traps.  While we waited the requisite two hours, we ate lunch on Saltspring Island.  The rain abated and we pulled up our traps (no prawns, but 8 crabs).  We had a delicious dinner of crab louis salad with enough crab to sate everyone.  Today we will put out prawn traps again, though the weather is terrible (raining).
 

Kokanee Creek Provincial Park, B.C.

We left Waterton for Kokanee Creek Provincial Park.  The weather was gorgeous again and the drive, with snow-covered mountains to the south and the Alberta prairie to the east was stunning.  We drove the Crow's Nest Highway most of the way including through Frank, Alberta, the site of the largest landslide in North America (Google it).  We drove up the east side of Kokanee Lake and rode the free ferry to Balfour (the longest free ferry ride in North America; 35 mins.).  This is a view of Kokanee Lake



Kokanee Creek Provincial Park, near Nelson, B.C. is the site of an artifical spawning stream to help the Kokanee recover.  Due to the dams up-river and the closure of a couple of mines that were dumping phosphorous and nitrogen in the lake, the stock of Kokanee plummeted.  The BC government is now salting the lakes weekly with phosphorous and nitrogen and the stocks are recovering.  They are spawning now.  They turn red, stop eating and start up the streams to spawn.  During this time they absorb their scales and eventually die.  They are spectacular to watch.  I was surprized there weren't a lot of bears around to eat all the dead fish, but apparently bears in this part of the world are 98%
vegetarian.  We also didn't see any birds of prey eating the dead fish.












In the evening we went into Nelson and listened to a good jazz band playing swing music in a bar.












The next morning, Joe, Bob and I took a short walk up Kokanee Canyon where we saw Kokanee that hadn't gone up the artificial spawning channel and were going up Kokanee Creek instead.










Eventually we reached a viewing platform at the top of the canyon.  There were no Kokanee up here, but they had made it most of the way up the canyon.

That afternoon we went into Nelson and Vera and I went to the museum to learn about the history of Nelson while Bob and Joe went to an internet cafe.  Nelson had a gold rush and a timber rush and was the site of numerous brothels.  It is now an art center.  We went out for Indian dinner and went home in the pouring rain.

Waterton National Park.

The day we left Glacier National Park it was pouring rain and in the mid-30's.  We awoke to find we had another flat tire on the Volvo, so went back to the place we had had it repaired the day before.  We ended up having to replace all four tires.  While various people were involved in getting the tires changed, I sat in the house of the grandfather, James, talking for about 2 hours.  He is a Chipewa who married a Blackfeet and has lived as a Blackfeet ever since.  He is the Topknot, one of the four persons who takes care of the bundle (in this case the Medicine Pipe bundle).  These are sacred bundles which the tribe received from museums in Canada (the Smithsonian has not released any of its bundles).  The bundles contain the pipe and various skins.  A couple cares for the bundle, but if they leave it must be taken by the Topknot and cared for.  This bundle is used specifically for curing and treating people who are ill.  We talked a lot about issues on the reservation, the Indian Health Service, the relationship between the Blackfeet and the National Park Service, his recently-deceased wife and many other things.  It was a fascinating experience.  He has loaned me two books on Blackfeet traditions.  We drove 45 miles north to Waterton through the sleet and snow and set up Snoopy in the campground right in Waterton and hunkered down for the afternoon.  The next day dawned sunny and promised to be warmer and Bob and I set off for a serious hike.  The first photo is looking back towards the townsite.  Waterton is spectacularly located.
This view is south down Upper Lake McDonald towards Goat Haunt in the US.












This slot is the canyon which we climbed up to Bertha Lake (about 1300' in 6.5 miles round trip).  The beginning was quite gradual.










 
Lower Bertha Falls is reached pretty easily, but the trail then starts to switchback up (with a sign warning that the trail goes up 325 meters).  Though it went steadily up, it was well engineered and not too bad.  It went through Lodgepole pine with occasional views of the lake and waterfalls.













 Eventually the trail went past Upper Bertha Falls.

















                  Here is a view over Upper and Middle McDonald Lake.












We finally reached the lake where there was a stiff cold wind blowing off the ice field.  We started to walk around the lake (4 km), but after going about 1/4 of the way around decided we needed to find a sheltered place to eat lunch and that we didn't really want to walk the additional 4 km.  There was a group of 5 French tourists who followed us (because they didn't have any bear spray).






 We finally found this slightly sheltered bay and ate our lunch.












We got back around 2 p.m. and decided to drive the Redrock Canyon Road with Joe and Vera.  First we stoped at the Prince of Wales Hotel (closed for the season).  It too was built by the Great Northern RR and sits on a promontory above the townsite with a stupendous view down Upper Lake McDonald.








 Due to the cold weather the day before, the mountains were all dusted with snow.  This was the view as we started up the Redrock Canyon Road.











The canyon is indeed red.  The red and white rocks are ancient muds.  The gray gravel is washed down from higher up.  It is spectacular, though not terribly deep.


































On the way back we saw this grizzly in the same area where a black bear had been feeding on the way in.  We couldn't figure out what they were eating.  It didn't look like berries and they weren't digging things from the ground.  This bear had the most gorgeous coat that was blowing in the wind.

Glacier National Park

We left Yellowstone's Edge RV Park, just north of Yellowstone, after enjoying a fabulous dinner at Chico Hot Springs Resort.  People come from all over to eat here (including people who fly in from Denver).  Due to the distance from Yellowstone to Glacier, we decided to get a reservation at a commercial RV park instead of trying to get to Many Glaciers campground, which had been filling by mid-afternoon.  By accident, we chose a campground 17 miles west of East Glacier, so we had to backtrack quite a bit to get up to Many Glaciers.  We left early enough to get there by noon, choose a campsite and hike to Apikini Falls (up 700' in a mile).  The weather was gorgeous when we got there.






                   Glacier has a lot of bears, and this year was no exception.  This black bear was about 100' off the road.











The next morning the weather was mixed, but we decided to drive the Going to the Sun Road with Joe and Vera, who had never done so.  However, we awoke to a flat tire on the Volvo and went into Bagg, MT (the nearest town outside the park) to get it fixed.  The young man who helped us had been trained by his grandpa and was slow, but we got the tire repaired and headed off.  One of the stops was Sunrift Gorge, a narrow slot canyon.










                   We got to Logan Pass on the Continental Divide and walked along the Highline trail for a while, ate our lunch and then hiked back.  This is a view west of Logan Pass showing the road cutting across the side of the mountain.









Just before lunch  we saw this marmot eating foliage and getting ready to hibernate for the winter.












Here we are on the Highline Trail.  We drove down to the Lake McDonald Lodge on Lake McDonald on the west side of Glacier National Park.  We passed a lot of the red Ford buses that have been rehabilitated and are powered by propane and take people on tours within the park.








This is one of the iconic views in Glacier over St. Mary Lake and Lone Goose Island towards Logan Pass.  That evening we heard a musical presentation of the history of the Lewis and Clark expedition by a singer/song writer who had composed a series of songs and set them to various pictures.  He was great and we got to enjoy the Many Glaciers Hotel before it closed for the season.  It, like the Lake McDonald Lodge, was built by the Great Northern RR and designed by engineers.  They are all massive with huge multi-story central entry halls/lounges and huge timbers holding up the ceilings.  They are all slightly different and all beautiful.

Northeastern Yellowstone National Park

We got up early again and decided to go see what large animals we could find in the Lamar Valley, in the northeast corner of Yellowstone.  We drove through the Hayden Valley in the fog, seeing lots of bison.  This photo is from the previous day when it was clear.  We got to the point where bison were just ho-hum and we wouldn't even stop for them.







We headed north from the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and got out of the clouds.  This viewpoint shows the fog over the Hayden Valley and Lake Yellowstone.










The overlook also overlooked Washburn Hot Springs (no access due to the fact that the surface is very unstable and various scientists have been scalded doing research there).










After crossing a pass, we came down into Tower Falls where there was serious road work being done and a half hour delay.  This allowed us to walk to the Tower Falls overlook (so named from the towers on either side of the top of the falls).  The road work included building 15' high rock walls on the side.  













                  We continued to the Lamar Valley, another broad valley with the Lamar River flowing down the center.  There were lots of bison, a pronghorn antelope, supposedly some elk and a coyote (though we never saw them).  It was beautiful and we drove all the way to the northeast entrance to Yellowstone.  The environment gets much more alpine and cooler.







Just before lunch we decided to take the Blacktail Plateau road (gravel) over the top of the Blacktail Plateau.  We stopped for lunch and watched this bison rolling in the dust below us.  There was another bison off to the right center of the photo.  The non-dominant bison males are separated from the herds right now, so we saw lots of single bison.







On the way back we stopped at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and walked down to the bottom of the lower falls.  328 steps down, but a beautiful view from the bottom.  There is so much spray from the falls that collects on the wall of the canyon, that there are small cataracts falling down the far wall also.  We then walked to look at the Upper Falls, before heading back to Fishing Bridge (so named because people used to fish off of it until the NPS stopped it so that the endangered cutthroat trout could breed).  I did see a huge cutthroat trout under the bridge.