Pacific Northwest 2024

What is very sad, is that the glaciers are quickly melting. It was easy to see how far back the Lake Louise glacier has receded. The Columbia Icefield Glacier, we walked on had an observation building at its foot. Now the building is almost a mile away from the glacier. In between the two are two small lakes of glacier melt. The glacier may disappear by 2050. The ice field on the top of the mountains may survive for a bit longer. If you would like to learn more about the ice fields and the European’s who first explored the region, check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Icefield

Medicine Lake is part of the Maligne Lake. In the fall the water level drops and the Medicine lake disappears. Seems there are sinkholes in the bottom of the lake that leads through a cave system and resurface about 10 miles downstream at Maligne. Now that is a great filer system. There were so many bit of interesting information that made a wilderness holiday academic.

The most luxurious part of the holiday was the Rocky Mountaineer over the mountains to Vancouver. It is two days of day time travel with a night stop in Kamloops, a mining town in BC that also services the train. In my 36 years of being a travel advisor I have had the opportunity to experience luxury travel. Well this is clearly on the top of the list. Food, beverages and stories were always provided. To help you understand, before arriving in Kamloops we were given an envelope with the name of our hotel and room number. In the envelope was are room key. A motor coach took us from the train to the hotel. We went straight to our rooms and the luggage was there! In the morning we left it. Now that is five-star service. Here are a few pictures.