A Few More Scenes from Banff and Jasper

I shared some scenes from our trip to Canada last July. Today, I am going to share a few more. These are mountain peaks along the Icefields Parkway.

I included two images of something out of the ordinary for me. I am a closet lover of railroads and trains. Kicking Horse Pass crosses the Big Hill west of Banff, AB in Canada. It sets on the Continental Divide and on the Alberta/British Columbia border. When British Columbia joined Canada, a railroad was built across British Columbia. Crossing the Rocky Mountains presented a significant obstacle. The best solution at that time was to send the railway up Big Hill and over Kicking Horse pass. But that meant ascending and descending 1,070 feet on 4 ½% grade; i.e. for every 100 feet of horizontal distance the hill rose/fell 4 ½ feet. The doesn’t sound like a lot, but it is. Pay attention to the grade signs on highways when you drive. When in use, there were many accidents on this hill. The Canadian government eventually contracted to build the “Spiraling Tunnels”. The Spiraling Tunnels is a set of 2 tunnels and connecting roadbeds under the mountains to make the ascent and descent more gradual[i]. The images I have included shows a train entering one of the tunnels and later as the locomotive exits the tunnel while part of its train is still entering.

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[i] Info from Kicking Horse National Historic Site, https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/pn-np/bc/yoho/culture/kickinghorse/visit/spirale-spiral

Note: Please click on caption to see images at higher resolution.

These and other images are available to purchase on my website: www.earthwatcher.us or by contacting larry.klink@earthwatcher.us