And on the 7th day . . . we drove home. From the Emerald Lake Lodge, we followed the Kicking Horse River down the canyon to Golden, BC. We had been down this way once before, in 2006 with Tyler and Jared. The calendar may have said July, but that water was every bit of 33 degrees.
Jared and Tyler have no memory of those terrified looks you see in picture #2. The Kicking Horse is a mere stream during the winter time, as opposed to the roaring glacial fed torrent we rafted in 2006.
When riding the bus to the put in for our rafting trip, the guide bragged about the road improvements that were forthcoming in advance of the 2010 Winter Olympics. Perhaps, but we can assure you, this is one road you will not enjoy in snowy conditions. After passing through Golden, we maintained our westerly course on the TransCanada, driving up and through Glacier National Park (the Canadian one). We had driven this road before in the fog, and we pleasantly surprised with the towering peaks and avalanche chutes that just missed the highway.
Revelstoke offered a stop for coffee, but lowering snow levels led us to keep going instead of staying for another day to enjoy North America's greatest lift served vertical at the Revelstoke Mountain Resort. Wilson claimed it was weather, but Amy suspects his legs were spent.
About an hour east of Kamloops, the darkening skies finally released their holdings, light snow, became, medium snow, became heavy snow, became a real hassle. We debated staying at Sun Peaks, but the nice reservation lady said the snow was the first they'd had in two weeks. Hmmm, we're only 5ish hours from home, and there is NFL tomorrow. Let's keep going. This was the scene 10 miles up the road.
We were the second vehicle car to come across this catastrophe. The Old Man got out to help. Some poor family lost their trailer. Honestly, we couldn't tell if it was recycling or just junk they wanted to keep. There was crap every where. The best part was all the Canadian Tire dollars blowing all over the freeway. At first, it looked like real money. Wilson reports that he picked up dozens of glass bottles, hundreds of cd's and a myriad of other junk. In the "good things come to those that help" department, he also discovered that the trip of pavement was not pavement at all. We had been doing 50mph down another ice rink. We really hate the Coquihalla Highway. We have never traversed this stretch of concrete without miserable conditions at one end or the other.
We got a wild hair and decided to test the meddle of the border guards at Sumas instead of our normal Aldergrove crossing, and we were rewarded by successfully smuggling into the U.S. all the the stuff we illegally smuggled into Canada in the first place.
Two hours later, the cats welcomed us home.
No comments:
Post a Comment