June 28th

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Leanchoil - Banff

June 28th, 7:00 PM
odometer 2359.0

All in all, today hasn't been too bad a day. After Field it was all uphill (one fairly bad stretch) to before Kicking Horse Pass where I took Rt 1-A to the continental divide and continued (uphill!) to the intersection leading to Lake Louise, which was a really wicked hill. A cyclist I met said there was a bank there, and indeed, there was one in the basement of the main Hotel, so I'm all set financially.

Lake Louise is like the source of the Rhone River, but with a smaller river (Louise Creek) and smaller glacier. It does have, however, a very pretty lake which would make the Rhone area really neat.

From Lake Louise, I flew down that wicked hill to 1-A which is equally wicked to 1. 1-A turned off again for 36 miles and I followed that nearly into Banff. 1-A is a pretty poor road, but no traffic and pretty woods. July 1 is Dominion Day, which is Canada's answer to Independence Day so there's a huge amount of traffic into the Parks.

Between 1A and Banff I spotted a Bighorn sheep (goat? - I forget) on the other side of the road, who ambled over to my side either in search of grass or a handout (not hand - they're herbivores, or at least try to be). His [2024: Her] crossing did a fine job tying up traffic, of course; in fact, his mere presence did quite well. He was cute (and liked the raisin biscuit I fed him).

If Kicking Horse Pass is 5,416 ft, and Banff is 4,600 ft, where is the rest of the downhill? Calgary is 2,600 (I think), so looks like a ways to go. I suspect that nearly all (85 - 95%) of my downhill was on 1A from Lk. Louise.

1930 Better mosey on and get some groceries before quitting for the night.

Photo notes

1: Between the paved road and the railroad at the continental divide are a stone mounument, a wooden sign, another stone monument for train passengers, and maybe another sign.

2: Divide Creek must require human assistance to keep it doing its thing. This little creek flows to the continental divide and branches in two. The left branch flows to the Pacific and the right branch flows to the Gulf of Mexico.

3 & 4: These must be permanent snow fields, so I'll call them glaciers though they barely deserve the term. These are along the road to Lake Lousise.

5: Lake Louise and more glaciers. I wonder how warm the lake water gets.

6: Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise.

8: Coming down from Lake Louise (what goes up gets to come down!) shows where the recent weather was snow. I later met some bicyclists who were up in Jasper with 6" of snow, they got ride to Banff in a pickup truck.

10 & 14: Google Streetview at Vermilion Lakes Viewpoint
The mountains here are textbook examples of "faulted block" mountains. From what was level terrain the ground was stretched millions of years ago and cracks led to blocks tilting over so what was horizontal is now a decent pitch.

The second image is from following the road which goes east for a ways and then turns south, showing how the block's rotation exposes a very different face.

11 - 13: This bighorn sheep wandered down to the roadway and disrupted the traffic that was already heavy with people out for Dominion Day and the Calgary Stampede. The magpie in the second photo scrounges ticks that pester the sheep, I wonder why we don't have these in New Hampshire feasting on the ticks that cause so much harm to our moose.

The sheep was looking pretty relaxed. While I wouldn't do this now, I figured she might like a piece of a raisin biscuit. So I carefully reached out with one between my finger tips and she seemed to like the treat.