Time: six hours, 50 minutes (lots of stops)
Kilometres: 170.5
Weather:
Fort MacLeod: Overcast but bright, 20C at 10 AM
The Crow's Nest: Partly cloudy, 18 C at noon
Fernie: Partly cloudy, 26 C at 5 PM
I have loads of pictures to show you, which I think will do much better than a written description. After checking into the Red Coat Motel (RCMP inspired) I went tof ra walk through historical Fort MacLeod. It took maybe 15 minutes for me to walk along main street and back. Most of the buildings are from 1903 to 1909. Not very historical, but I guess it is as the west really wasn't settled at that point.
One street over, and running parallel to Main Street is the actual fort. It was the training area for the RCMP (at that time I think they were still called the Northwest Mounted Police) in the west before the base operations moved east to Regina. The fort is a simple wooden pallisade. I didn't bother to go in as it was after 6 and it was most likely closed for the day.
I got up early in the morning and began packing my bike. As I was playing with the bungee chords, I
heard the clip-clop of hooves. It took a second for the sound to register. When I looked up, the RCMP
was going by the hotel. Later on, as I pulled out of town, I purposely rode by the fort and found out that they do the Musical Ride twice a day, with the first performance at 10. I'd just
missed it.
I headed west, eagerly waiting for my first glimpse of the mountains. I could clearly see the foothills, but not the actual mountains. One of things on my "to see" list was the wind farm at Pincher Creek. I believe it is the largest in Canada, but I guess most of the are over the hills and not visible
from the Crowsnest Highway.
Nonetheless, I got a good shot of them along the top of a ridge. I think that the wind farm near Kincardine, Ontario is much bigger, but it is much windier in Pincher Creek.
From just before reaching Pincher Creek, I could see both the foothills and the Rockies. I was so looking forward to this part of the trip.
Just up the highway from Pincher Creek is Lundbreck. I was now getting into the mountains. I'd been having big problems with my helmet speakers over the last few days, but I finally got them working for today's ride. Just as I rode through Lundbreck, Nightwish's Higher Than Hope was playing. It's a real juxtaposition to listen to symphonic goth while riding through the foothills and the mountains. So out of place.
My first stop was at the ruins of a coal mining operation. The stone washhouse foundations and first floor walls were still in tact. The tipple was long gone, but I could see where the footing were. Signs along the way told the story of how coal was mined in the area. I looked to the west and over one a hill I saw the peak of a huge stone mountain.
I turned a corner and came to the sign I'd bee waiting to see for such a long time: I was in the Crowsnest Pass
I soon rounded a corner and had a spectacular view of the area. It actually made my chin drop, but there wasn't a turnout on the road, so sorry, no pic.
My first stop was in Bellevue. I grabbed a quick sandwich and then headed for the mine, where I was given a miner hardhat and lamp. At the mouth of the coal mine was a thermometer. It was 2C. I was glad that I was wearing five layers of clothes. The first thing that hit me was the smell: sulphur. And, man, was it ever strong. the next thing that hit me was the very sudden temperature drop. I was only about three metres in the mine and it was close to freezing. The guide took a small group of us tourist down the main shaft of the mine. Because the shaft followed the vein of coal, the floor in level (but slopping downwards) but the ceiling and walls are not. The thick wooden beams holding up the ceiling are at angle and it really gave me the impression of being in a fun house at the midway. We were told to look at the floor if we
started to get disoriented. I was down the mind for about an hour. To me it was worth the $10,
but some people definitely would not like it.
In the parking lot was a couple of coal railroad cars. I reached into one of the cars and now have a nice, shiny (means it's very high grade) piece of coal as a souvenir of my visit to the Corwsnest.
The most imposing feature of the Crownest is Turtle Mountain. That was the mountain I had seen from my the ruins of the wash house. The Indians called it Turtle Mountain because they believed it moved. Of course the white guys at the time thought that was a bunch of crap. They build the coal mining town of Frank at the base of Turtle Mountain. Then early one morning in April 1903, the mountain moved. Half the face came off and slid through the town of Frank and across the valley floor. Seventy people were killed. The miners working that night had to tunnel their way out.
Seeing the rock slide in photos doesn't begin to show the enormity of the event. Some of the rocks, I guess I should call them boulders, are the size of small house. Some of them were bigger than my 750 square foot apartment.
Here are two pictures. The first is of the Turtle Mountain. You can clearly see the area that gave way. The second picture was taken from the same spot, but I've turned around to show you how far the slide went and how big some of the smaller boulders were.
I'd heard about the slide years ago, and this was one of my main reasons for riding through the pass.
As I have known the story of the Frank Slide for years, there was no reason for me to go into the interpretive centre; but I went up there to get a broader view of the area.
I can't end off today's post with showing you a picture of the mountain the pass was named after:
It was starting to get late in the afternoon, so I decided to call it a day. I had about an hours ride into Fernie, and I was looking forward to going for a swim
