CR2014: From Talus Lodge to A Walk in the Past Trail

July 21st opened with a spotlight on the flanks of the mountains to the west.

Joan and I came up to breakfast to discover that our companion pigs had been playing in the kitchen. Doc Maybe was perched in a lookout spot,

and Percy was balancing on the draining rack!

Bad weather moved in, clouds, fog, and for a while, hail (click on the photo to enlarge).

Clouds came scudding up from the lower valleys.

The helicopter waited out this bad weather; in the end, the delay was only an hour, and Joan and I were not on a tight schedule today. The helicopter came up from the valley and swung around the bowl, rather than popping over the ridge.

The landing included pivoting the helicopter to keep the external storage locker on the same side as the luggage.
Half of a family group (Dad and daughter) were dropped off at the Shark Mountain helipad to pick up their car; Mom and son would fly to Canmore and wait for them.

For this final leg I got a turn in the front seat.

The clouds were still low down here, but they didn't deter an experienced pilot. We were going downhill to Canmore, not up into the mountains.

After disembarking in Canmore and grabbing our bags, we had trouble opening and closing the trunk in our rental car. On investigation the fault turned out to be a pebble wedged into the latch mechanism, which we dislodged.

Joan and I had extra time in the afternoon, so we drove a while up the Icefields Parkway to drink in the landscape.

We certainly weren't the only ones.

Then we returned to the Trans-Canada Highway and drove on to Field, where we would spend the night. There is a trail leaving from the Kicking Horse Campground, called A Walk in the Past.

This is an interpretive historical trail, with printed guides visible in the lower right of the photo. The signs on the trail are easy to find.

The path departs from a flat campground, so we weren't expecting an interesting landscape. However, the trail soon launches into a climb up the flank of the mountain, crosses the railroad and under the TransCanada. It grows into a broader way that follows the steep (4.5%) railroad bed originally used before the creation of the Spiral Tunnels, which reduced the grade to a manageable 2.2% in 1908.

At the end of the trail lies an narrow gauge locomotive, abandoned when the construction of the Spiral Tunnels was completed.

It's a Baldwin 2-6-0 mogul steam locomotive, as described in this plaque (click on the photo to enlarge).

There was a panoply of flowers in one section of the route. Here, a tall white bog orchid.

The indian paintbrush is one of the most widespread flowering plants, and most varied in color, in the Canadian Rockies.

And here is the mountain death camas. As you might suspect, it's not a good idea to eat the flowers.

Impressive in an entirely different way was this tree, bark clawed off by a bear. My walking stick provides scale. I'm glad I wasn't here the same time as the bear.

We returned to our car and checked into the nearby Cathedral Mountain Lodge, where we unpacked. This required precision because most of the floor space is filled with the bed, a short armoire, gas-fired heater, and chairs. After unpacking the minimum amount for a one-night stay, we had dinner at the lodge.

When Joan and I went to bed, it became clear that the cabins have a design problem. They have a high clerestory ("clear story") window facing the porch, which admits light from the strategically placed porch light. The porch light automatically turns on at dusk and cannot be turned off. There is no curtain or other means of preventing the bright light from entering the cabin. It was too high to reach. We finally gave up; I re-dressed and trudged over to the front desk, where the surprised but helpful staff member rustled up a short stepladder, and we successfully turned off the light by unscrewing the bulb a couple of turns. Insulating my hand by a towel, of course.

Darkness properly established, we went to sleep. Tomorrow, Lake O'Hara!