For The Love of Travel

WOWIE! AWESOME! FABULOSO!….a balmy 20 degrees and sunny….the helicopter flight over Whistler Summit and Blackcomb Mountain goes off as planned…..woo hoo. Only 12 minutes of flight in a 5 seater Bell helicopter 401 but worth every minute.

Then the Peak to Peak (Whistler to Blackcomb) gondola/chair lift ride for even more woo hoo’s…this is seriously gorgeous and I want to come back in winter around January.

Attended a late afternoon (very informative and fun) presentation by Michael Allen on brown and black bears….what amazing creatures….more detail on their mating, feeding and hibernation behaviour when we next catch up.

And I saw a lovely little hoary marmot initially peeking out from under a statue at Whistler summit, who then decided to ‘come out’ ….it is the largest North American ground squirrel and is often nicknamed “the whistler” for its high-pitched warning issued to alert other members of the colony to possible danger.

A whole day of bus travel in rain through the Cayoosh Range and Canyon, narrow and twisting with a rock wall between 5-7,000 ft in height, with the highway clinging to the mountainface. It’s a zone of extreme aridity and high summer temperatures, featuring lizards, cactus, and sagebrush. “Nkoomptch” is the historical name for this locality historically and means “water crossing over” in the St’at’imcets language.

Cayoosh Falls to the Fraser river was the scene of the Cayoosh Gold Rush of the 1880s, in which 300 Chinese gold miners were estimated by the local Government Agent to have taken out around $6 million in gold. The creek’s riverbed throughout this stretch was literally turned upside down and remains of Chinese gold-mills and gold-furnaces can be found near the Hydro campsite, as well as piles of washed rocks which are byproducts of Chinese mining methods.

We set off on our rafting expedition…..check out my brave young fellow traveller….ha, ha

Rafting on the Athabasca River later in the afternoon delivered great views….I admired the gorgeous mountain backdrop of Roche Bonhomme, aka Old Man Mountain on the Colin’s Range. The trail goes pretty much straight up the mountain alongside a runoff stream, which tumbles down from one of the avalanche paths. The mountain looks like an old man looking into the sky and the various avalanche paths form his headdress, as if he were a native chief in the mountain. The summit is the bonhomme’s forehead.

And then as we floated, we just caught sight of some elk silhouettes…and then up close at Jasper Park Lodge later.

We travelled from Jasper to Mt Robson National Parks today seeing gorgeous cloud formations, water lilies and BEAR!!!!