Canada

The photo album of this fantastic adventure is up and running. It is hard to capture in pictures the magnificence of the Canadian Rockies.

I recommend that you review the album first to see the captions and itinerary and then do the slide show to view the beauty

Click Rocky Mountaineer Photo Album

Today was our decompression day before flying back to the USA in the very early morning. Most of east bound flights leave at 7:00am or before.

The main project was to get our Covid test for re-entry into the US. We Uber'd out the the airport, where we had made an appointment to get tested. There was no wait and after 5 minutes to check in and 15 minutes to wait for the results, then Uber back to the hotel. I walked down to Olympic Park and, after lunch we went up the Calgary Tower to get a view of the city.

With a population of 1,239,220, Calgary is the most-populous city in Alberta, the third most populous city in Canada after Toronto and Montreal, and the most populous city in Western Canada. The Calgary Metropolitan Area had a population of roughly 1,581,000 in the beginning of 2021, making it the second most-populous in western Canada, and the fourth-largest census metropolitan area (CMA) in Canada. Calgary's economy includes activity in the energy, financial services, film and television, transportation and logistics, technology, manufacturing, aerospace, health and wellness, retail, and tourism sectors. The Calgary Metropolitan Region is home to Canada's second-highest number of corporate head offices among the country's 800 largest corporations.

The Calgary Tower is a 190.8-meter (626 ft) free standing observation tower in the downtown core of Calgary. Originally called the Husky Tower, it was conceived as a joint venture between Marathon Realty Company Limited and Husky Oil as part of an urban renewal plan and to celebrate Canada's centennial of 1967.

This was a fantastic trip. I am glad we went west to east, as you leave the seaside, head into the Cariboo Plateau, travel into the high Rockies and then descend into the plains. It really added a crescendo to the adventure.

Today is our last full day of touring. We left the Banff Springs Hotel in mid morning. Our stops today included Bow Falls, the Banff Gondola, free time for lunch in Banff and then meandering out of the hills to the plains surrounding Calgary.

We finally got a day to sleep in and explore the Lake Louise resort - one of the great properties in the world. Since we didn't leave until mid-afternoon, I took a walk almost to the end of the lake. Although cloudy, it is an amazingly beautiful place.

We then boarded the bus and headed to Banff, stopping at Yoho National Park Natural Bridge on the Kicking Horse River, the Spiral Tunnels and Emerald Lake.

The Big Hill on the Canadian Pacific Railway main line in British Columbia, Canada, was the most difficult piece of railway track on the Canadian Pacific Railway's route. It was situated in the rugged Canadian Rockies west of the Continental Divide of the Americas and Kicking Horse Pass. Even though the Big Hill was replaced by the Spiral Tunnels in 1909, the area has long been a challenge to the operation of trains and remains so to this day. The essential problem was that the railway had to ascend 1,070 feet (330 m) along a distance of 10 miles (16 km) from Field at 4,267 feet (1,301 m) climbing to the top of the Continental Divide at 5,340 feet (1,630 m). The narrow valleys and high mountains limited the space where the railway could stretch out and limit the grade (hence the later decisions to bore extra mileage under the mountains and lower the grades).

Emerald Lake is enclosed by mountains of the President Range, as well as Mount Burgess and Wapta Mountain. This basin traps storms, causing frequent rain in summer and heavy snowfalls in winter. Due to its high altitude, the lake is frozen from November until June. The vivid turquoise color of the water, caused by powdered limestone, is most spectacular in July as the snow melts from the surrounding mountains.

Today was special because we got to walk on the Athabasca Glacier as we wandered our way to Lake Louise. The Athabasca Glacier is one of the six principal 'toes' of the Columbia Icefield, located in the Canadian Rockies. The glacier currently loses depth at a rate of about 5 metres (16 ft) per year and has receded more than 1.5 km (0.93 mi) and lost over half of its volume in the past 125 years. Easily accessible, it is the most visited glacier in North America. It was chilly-about 20 degrees fahrenheit - with the wind chill. We then got a different view at the Glacier Skywalk before we traveled to Lake Louise.

Lake Louise is named after the Princess Louise Caroline Alberta (1848–1939),[3] the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria and the wife of the Marquess of Lorne, who was the Governor General of Canada from 1878 to 1883. Lake Louise from eastern shoreline, facing west. Lake Louise & Lake Agnes as seen from Devils Thumb. The turquoise color of the water comes from rock flour carried into the lake by melt-water from the glaciers that overlook the lake. The lake has a surface of 0.8 km2 (0.31 sq mi) and is drained through the 3 km long Louise Creek into the Bow River.