Down the Kicking Horse River From Field and through Glacier National Park — Fall Foliage Through Domes

Fall Foliage Through Domes

Wednesday, October 5, 2011 Part 2

First Passage to the West (Kicking Horse Route) Day 1, Part 2

Down the Kicking Horse River and through Glacier National Park

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At 11:13 we leave Field after doing our crew change work and slowly start entering the valley carved by the Kicking Horse River. We also go through a siding with another freight train.

11:25 — See a prescribed burn
11:30 — Pass some pine beetle infected trees
11:36 — MP-10 — Pass a crane and a construction area and keep following the Kicking Horse River, passing lakes in a wide valley with trees blocking the view in places across from the Trans-Canada highway. We slowly keep making our way down the mountains.
Noon — the valley opens on either side becoming much wider, the Kicking Horse River entering and leaving from view as we go down the valley
12:05 — Tunnel 1924. This is the year this tunnel opened. A railway is never totally finished; it is more fluid always under construction entity.
12:06 — Cross the Kicking Horse River and a steel bridge and keep following it
12:09 — Pass a crane car, MOW equipment on a siding. Upstairs mini-quiches are being served to tide us over, well, really for the people who boarded at 6:30am in Calgary. Since I am almost always hungry I eat quite a few, they're quite good.
12:15 — Pass a Hi-Rail full of signal equipment on Palliser siding
12:27 — Pass more signs of track work with anther Hi-Rail Truck and keep following the river
12:29 — MP-27 — An impressive concrete bridge of the Trans-Canada Highway above us crossing the river
12:37 — The highway comes back into view and crosses over and above us again
12:42 — Another tunnel as we keep going through the canyon over many bridges and through tunnels
12:48 — MP-33 Kickinghorse River leaves us and we enter yet another short tunnel
12:52 — MP-36 and go through the railroad sidings in Golden. Here we have some interesting CP Freight action of four different trains and some idle locomotives along with a caboose full of track maintainers that watch our train go by.
12:53 — Pass Golden, go across a creek and enter the Rocky Mountain Trench for 35 miles and keep following the quite wide Columbia River as we also pass marshes
1:03 — Moberly
1:10 — Ford and a mineral mine
1:12 — Zoom by a freight train that catches me off-guard outside
1:17 — Out on the viewing platform I have to myself smelling something, a skunk perhaps?
1:19 — Jansens on the straight two track line and pass a lumber yard with waving.
1:23 — Have a nice view of the Columbia River
1:29 — Redgrave and pass a logging train on the siding
1:33 — Pass a closed tunnel as we follow a rock cut along another river and tunnel at MP 58.3 as the host claims there is a bear, which is untrue. We go through a tunnel and keep following the Columbia River.
1:37 — Beavermouth as we keep following the Columbia although the line as telephone wires for the first time hamper photographs a bit.
1:39 — Pass another freight train
1:46 — MP 65 a nice river down below surrounded by quite a few trees
1:49 — go over a steel bridge and enter Rodgers passing more freight trains parked along the side and leave the Columbia to follow the Illecillewaet River through a smaller canyon.
2:02 — eating refreshments we go over a small wide mountain stream and then start climbing up over a valley
2:15 — Surprise Creek, a short bridge 416 feet above this creek below
2:20 — We slow down for photos crossing the Stoney Creek Bridge, 484 feet long, 325 foot high above the creek bed below bridge.
2:22 MDT — We are now told to go inside for the five mile tunnel beneath Rodgers pass, the Kanot Tunnel that opened in 1914. A second tunnel, the Rodgers Tunnel which is 9.1 miles long supplemented it opening in 1988.
2:30 MDT — MP 80 Enter the Connaught Tunnel. At somepoint in this area we have entered Pacific Time, I don't really know exactly where but the Connaught Tunnel seems like it could be a close place for where the time change occurs, so I change my watch here.The crew is even vague about this.
1:38 PDT — Leave the tunnel, pass railroad sidings entering Canada's Glacier National Park passing various creeks along the way, following a stream seeing snow-capped mountain peaks
1:49 PDT — MP 90 We pass another freight train on this quite crowded rail line.
2:09 — A tunnel type snowshed then more of a tunnel and also a snowshed is visible on the highway
2:12 — Go into emergency breaking quickly, never a good sign, as I talk to a train buff travel agent on the train showing other travel agents around, we start moving shortly thereafter to Illecillewaet East.
2:26 — MP98 as we keep going down Rodgers Pass including a neat stone bridge that the Trans-Canada Highway crosses over a creek
2:37 — Pass Albert Canyon Siding and see a little abandoned tunnel that was abandoned when the train got rock blasted instead
2:44 — In Lauretta another train passes
3:00 — pass a large meadow with some farmland and then a brief view of the river. Then pass Greely, and were called downstairs for lunch.