Thursday, August 2, 2018
Lake Louise Campground, Banff Narional
Park, Alberta, Canada
This was a long day. I expected it to
take 7 or 8 hours to get here. It took 15.
The plan was to go up the west of
Glacier, Waterton and Banff National Parks. I had been up the east
side, through Calgary, several times, and wanted something different,
even though it would be about an hour longer. That was my mistake.
It started out OK, I got an early start
and got into Canada with no problem. When I got to Radium Hot Springs
and turned onto the road to Banff, things began to go wrong. The
road to Banff and Lake Louise was closed due to fire. The detour was
about 60 kilometers north to Golden (the one in British Columbia, not
Colorado) and then down the Trans-Canada highway to Lake Louise.
That's about 150 km but I've still got lots of time – it was only
2:00 pm or so. I'd still get there around 4:00.
I got to Golden and about 20 kilometers
towards Lake Louise and stopped at the entrance to Yoho National
Park. There I was told that the road ahead was closed due to a big
accident and would remain closed for 6 hours or so. They recommended
I go back to Golden and wait, checking the BC road conditions web
page for updates. So I did, getting back there about 3:30 and
parking at a truck stop. There was much confusion there. People
didn't know what to do or what was going on. They had road blocks up
in Golden by then, but were letting some people through.
So I went into the truck stop's cafe
and had dinner. Then back to the trailer and read a while. About
5:00 or so, I saw that the roadblocks were gone, so I checked with
the web page and the road closure was no longer listed. So, back on
the road. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad.
It's about 90 km from Golden to Lake
Louise and the speed limits are around 100 kph with a few slower
spots, so it should take about an hour. At about the 40 km point,
traffic stopped. I knew the wreck had been about 65 km from Golden,
so this was not good. It was stop and go for the next 25 km (about
15 miles) and 3 ½ hours. There was lots of traffic coming the other
way, so I knew the road was open. It was around 9:00 by the time I
got to the wreck. It was all cleaned up except for 1 really crunched
car on the shoulder.
It was clear sailing the rest of the
way. Not so for the oncoming lanes. They were backed up past Lake
Louise – over 25 km, so it might not have mattered if I went the
eastern route or not. I might have been caught up in that mess
instead. But, then again, I might have been there early enough to
miss it all together.
I finally got to my campsite and all
set up by about 10:00.
A long day, indeed.
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