We are in the Columbia Mountains
Trip Start
May 29, 2009
1
31
114
Trip End
Oct 03, 2009
Where I stayed
Canyon Hot Springs, British Columbia, Canada
Thursday, July 2, 2009
We have enjoyed spectacular snow and glacier capped mountain scenery since the US Glacier Park in Montana, and all through Waterton Lakes, Banff, and Kootenay. Somehow, it keeps getting better and better. The scenery pictures of Canadian Glacier Park terribly understate the beauty that we saw today.
We stopped at Rogers Pass Visitor Center which is also a National Historic Site. The discovery center explains the history of the Canadian Pacific Railroad through these mountains. In the late 1800s they built 31 "snow sheds", to prevent avalanches across the tracks. By 1910 they had lost 200 men to avalanches and accidents trying to keep the tracks open through the winter. In 1916 a tunnel was built to keep the transcontinental railroad open. We hiked along the abandoned railbed past the area where 58 men died in an avalanche while trying to clear a prior avalanche. Our trail led to a monument for all of the transportation efforts through the pass.
Along with all of the railroad history, Glacier National Park contains more than 400 glaciers. These make the mountaintops so spectacular. Avalanches are still a problem. They use howitzer shells to set off small avalanches to prevent large ones. Trans Canada Highway 1 is partially protected by snow sheds. The snowfall is much heavier on the western side of the continental divide.
