Goodbye to the mountains

After yesterday's brutally long and slow drive, it was a pleasure to start today with a 35 mile bike ride, from Cranbrook to Kimberly and back. Beautiful paved bike trail all the way, and mostly downhill on the way back. How perfect is that? This is a rail trail and part of the trans-Canada trail that's being developed, through pretty pines and along high bluffs overlooking the St. Mary's river.

Oh how I wished i'd stayed in Kimberly instead of Cranbrook. Kimberly has several blocks downtown that are motor-vehicle free, prettily brick paved, lots of restaurants and such. I got up early in Cranbrook this morning thinking I'd walk through downtown and find a nice little coffee shop. But it was dead, dead, dead, nothing open until 9 or 10 and the only coffee shop was the Safeway Starbucks, and even they didn't open until 8!

In Kimberly I even found a thrift store, where I bought a small American Tourister bag for $3. This because I'm already tired of lugging my suitcase out of the car, with it's two months worth of stuff. This will allow me to carry only what I need for a day or two.

Then on over the Rockies. Crow's Nest pass was a bit of a disappointment. Having a whole big road named after it, I thought surely it would be a steep, high, rocky affair, but not at all. It's a relatively flat, wide area of golden fields and aspens. Without the sign it wouldn't even have caught my eye as a mountain pass.

Just the other side of Crow's Nest, I came upon the Frank Slide. Wow, this is impressive. A vast field of huge boulders, like a scree slope for a giant: On April 29, 1903, 90 million tons of limestone rock slid down Turtle mountain at speeds up to 70mph, and in less than 2 minutes had obliterated a good portion of the coal mining town of Frank, the Canadian Pacific Railway, and the coal mine. A section of the mountain nearly 1/2 mile X 1/4 mile had broken off. About 80 people were killed, most of whom are still under the rocks somewhere. I'll post pictures later...

I've said goodbye to the mountains for now and am spending tonight in Lethbridge, surrounded by rolling and treeless prairie. Lethbridge is a sizable town, around a hundred thousand people. I've treated myself to a nice hotel for the night,with full and-- this is a first for me-- yummy Torrefazione Italia coffee in the room.

 

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