A Viking’s Walkabout – Day 10 – Viking Navigation LLC

Banff, Alta. to Grande Cache, Alta. via glaciers, a detour around Jasper fire, and a flat tire (someone else’s… this time…)

Distance: 405 miles / 652 km

Time: ~8h15m + 45m to change a tire

It wouldn’t be an adventure if “Forest Trunk Road” doesn’t show up on the map as a shortcut… Sure, why not? Need some practice for gnarlier roads to come. What could possibly go wrong?!?!

Despite the eagle selling the “fibre” intenet in yesterday’s post, the internet here actually did not work. I threw my Starlink out by the hiking trail behind a bush and ran the wire back to the room. Problem solved.

My original plan was to drive north from Banff through the parks and Jasper to Grande Cache. But the fire that destroyed Jasper had closed the road north of the glaciers. I decided to drive to the glaciers and then backtrack and take a “short cut.”

Wild erosion north of Banff.

Lake colors are very weird up here.

It almost looks like a diorama or a model railroad landscape…

Seemingly every hour north of here I would cross some massive watercourse I had never heard of and realize there was way more water in that river than any river I grew up around.

The mountains tower here.

Athabasca Glacier.

Athabasca Glacier seen from the visitors center. In the late 1800s the glacier ended where I am standing. The ice is now over a mile away.

Here is where the glacier ended in 1982. The moraine in front of you blocks the view of the glacier.

Where the glacier ended in 1992 from the top of the moraine seen in the previous photo.

Willowherb growing near the glaciers.

The last moraine, melt water stream, and the foot of the glacier.

Towering cliffs, waterfalls and streams on the way back to Saskatchewan Crossing.

Waterfalls everywhere.

I think these might be female bighorn sheep, but I’m out on a limb of ignorance there. They were all over the road on a steep hillside near Abraham Lake.

Abraham Lake east of the parks along Highway 11.

Because the road north out of Jasper was closed, I backtracked from the glaciers to Saskatchewan River Crossing, and headed east. Then I turned north on a logging road. This was an OK gravel road, but it was rough from extensive coal and logging truck traffic.

As I rounded a corner I saw a man and a woman struggling to turn a lug wrench on a flat tire. Their pickup had Alaska tags. I knew the problem: He couldn’t get enough leverage to turn the lug nut with the tiny wrench they give you with your car. For this eventuality I carried a 3-foot steel pipe cheater bar to slide over the end of the wrench and provide leverage. I stopped and offered help.

He was a recently discharged US Army soldier trying to get back to Georgia (OK, further than me… one-way at least). I got his tire off and then three or four other people stopped to help. This was the nice thing about the roads up north: People stopped to ask if you were OK and offer help. Everyone was working on the karma store in anticipation of the inevitable.

It was a roadside maintenance party. In this photo we are getting the lugs back on as our new Canadian friend with the truck full of tools used his impact drive to tighten the lugs. I was proud to be Archimedes in this episode, but I wasn’t gonna argue with power tools. The spare we are mounting is not gonna get very far. I hope they made it to Rocky Mountain House and the tire shop that would open tomorrow… or at least back to cell phone service.

Having passed the proof of concept for changing a flat, I proceeded north while the maintenance party went south. Here a through truss bridge is reflected on War Bus’s hood while the timber bridge deck shines below.

Lots of difficult to photograph coal mines and logging on this road. The time horizon on harvesting trees is longer than in most other agricultural businesses.

This forest never ends. Really. It doesn’t end until the tundra several days from now.

Ending my night in the Grande Cache Hotel. I found lots of little inns along the way that were well maintained, nice, and inexpensive. There was also clearly a pride in the staff and ownership of many of these remote hotels. It was refreshing and different. Every door had what I thought of as an “Ent” on the door. They were all different. It was cool.

Closing time at High Country Steak & Ale. A couple locals, a couple truckers, and a couple guests all finished and headed to bed as I sat down by myself to chat with the one waitress/bartender/cook between their myriad duties. It was bedtime, but we are a ways north now. It’s about 9pm in the photo.