Rocky Mountain High # 3: Wetlands and Highlands

Funny thing about mountainous regions, how often the low parts in between seem to turn into wetlands -- kind of the opposite of what most people imagine when they think about "mountains."  A good part of this comes from the way rivers rush down mountains at high speed, scouring away all kinds of rock, sand, and gravel.  Then they hit a lower-lying, more level area, slow down, and all the accumulated baggage drops onto the river bed.  I was brought face-to-face with both sides of this reality repeatedly during the third day of my mountain travels.

I was up even before the sun in Golden, and left at 0745 to drive south.  Before I went, I took this picture from my hotel room, looking west across the Dogtooth Range to the Selkirks.  The valley immediately to the left of the pyramid-shaped mountain is Rogers Pass -- and it looks so close, almost as if you could just go straight across country to get there!  What's less obvious is the great altitude difference -- that valley is over 500 metres higher than Golden.  A clearer picture taken in full daylight would show the highway cutting at an angle across the face of that pyramid on its ascent to the pass.

As the morning gradually opened to daylight, I was driving away to the southeast, along the Rocky Mountain Trench.  It's a placid drive through farming country.  But at every bend, I was reminded that the road is situated a little way up the eastern slope of the valley for a reason.  The entire floor of the Trench from Golden to the south is all wetland.  It's flat as a pancake, and full of water.  The Columbia River, flowing north, meanders back and forth all over the valley floor, and the loops are full of cutoff oxbow lakes and marshes.

Also striking was the difference in the sky.  The morning had begun clearly enough, but as I went south and the sun started to edge its way over the mountains, things looked very different indeed.

Of course, it was the smoke blowing northeastwards from the horrific fires in the western United States.  More on that theme later.

After well over an hour of driving I reached the spa town of Fairmont Hot Springs, and here the road switches from the east side of the valley to the west side, passing directly below the face of this unexpected rock formation.

The highway then climbs high up along the western side of the valley above Columbia Lake, and there are several viewpoints.  The view would be much more spectacular without the fire smoke.

Then the road drops down again to the small town of Canal Flats, my first stopping point for the day.  That early rise in the morning, and my lifelong habit of browsing through maps, had given me the inspiration for a unique place for my daily walk.  It took me about 25 minutes to walk around the level trail through these wetlands.

But this isn't just any wetland.  In fact, it's one of the weirdest examples of how small things in nature lead to great results.  Barely two kilometres away, on the south side of Canal Flats, the Kootenay River flows by, coming down out of the Rocky Mountains to the east and then turning south.  That river is located just 4 metres higher than this marsh.  The wetland is in fact filled by water seeping through the ground out of the river bed.

This small wetland is actually the beginning of a very long trip.  What you are seeing here is the headwaters of the mighty Columbia River, here beginning its 2000-kilometre journey to the sea.  Not only that, but the Kootenay River, which at Canal Flats is already a mature stream, eventually ends up emptying into the Columbia as one of its principal tributaries at the city of Castlegar.

The oddest fact of all is this.  If it weren't for this 2-kilometre dry stretch where Canal Flats is situated, the entire region of the Purcell, Dogtooth, Bugaboo, and Selkirk Mountains would all be an island, with the Columbia looping around these ranges to the north and the Kootenay going around them to the south.  This conjunction of intriguing facts -- and the realization of just how much can spring from such humble beginnings -- made for an unusually thoughtful morning walk.

I then retraced my steps northward as far as the resort town of Radium Hot Springs, the gateway to Kootenay National Park.  After getting some gas and a light lunch, I turned east up Highway 93.  You climb up through the town, passing hotels and restaurants, and then round a bend -- and just like that, you're in the narrow confines of Sinclair Canyon.  This dramatic crack in the rocks is a fault, and to say that it's a tight fit for both road and river is a masterpiece of understatement.

Here's the spot where the river vanishes into a deep culvert under the road at the narrowest part of the Canyon.

Driving up from Radium Hot Springs, you may want to make a snap left turn across the road into the small parking area.  But no need to panic -- just carry on another 50 metres and there's a bigger parking area on the right side!

Beyond the first dramatic crack in the wall you come to the pools of the Radium Hot Springs, one of the three hot springs facilities in Canada's Rocky Mountain National Parks.  The other two are the Miette Hot Springs, east of Jasper, and the Banff Hot Springs.  All three are currently closed due to Covid-19, otherwise I'd have been in that water myself!

The road continues snaking its way up the Canyon, which is now not quite as narrow as at first, and climbs up and over the Sinclair Pass.  A few bends after you start down the other side, you come to a roadside viewpoint with a spectacular view over the Kootenay River valley.  

The road then runs down the slope into the valley and continues north, following the Kootenay River.  This entire parkland is missed every year by visitors stampeding to the internationally-known Banff, Lake Louise, and Jasper.  I'd say it's their loss.

Here are just a few highlights.  There's a dramatic view from the overlook where the river flows through Hector Canyon.  This picture clearly shows the sand and gravel bars found in almost all mountain rivers wherever the current slows down.

 Farther north, the stunning Numa Falls.

The most sobering sight was the huge areas of dead trees, obvious victims of an infestation of ravenous beetles.  

Even whole mountainsides have been turned from dark green to barren grey by the pests.

It's not just the loss of the trees, sad as that is.  It's the realization that this region is primed and ready to go for a catastrophic forest fire.  While fires perform an important function by allowing an entire forest to regenerate, they certainly do nothing for the aesthetic beauty of the wilderness.  Here in a national park, with minimal human interference, you see at work both the up and down sides of what novelist John Wyndham called "the great revolving wheel of natural economy."

I had to pass on the next two scenic stops, the Paint Pots and Marble Canyon, because the parking lots there were suddenly filled right up.  That's the surest sign that you're reaching the north end of Kootenay National Park, because you're suddenly within easy striking distance of a day trip from Banff!

As the road climbs up the north end of the tributary Vermilion River valley towards Vermilion Pass, you come face to face with this striking and distinctive mountain formation -- which, to me, suggests nothing quite so much as a super-giant-sized iguana stretched out along the ridge.

The first time I drove up Highway 93, I didn't realize at first that this was none other than Castle Mountain, looming over the Bow River Valley between Banff and Lake Louise.  Here's my earlier picture to show what the mountain looks like from down by the Bow River.

Mountains can seem so definitive, so immutable and unchanging.  And yet, with a shift in your viewpoint, suddenly they do look very different indeed.  That's a lesson I re-learn every time I visit the Rocky Mountains.

Highway 93 ends with a final sweeping descent from the Vermilion Pass down to the Bow valley, and with that I turned onto Trans-Canada Highway 1 towards Calgary to begin my trip home.  But there's one last scenic vista.  You have to be travelling east on the Trans-Canada to visit this viewpoint, just west of Banff, which combines wetlands and peaks in one spot.

And with that iconic view of the distinctive profile of Mount Rundle, this brief mountain tour ends.  To close, here's a map showing the 1100 kilometres of driving that I did over the course of four days, Wednesday to Saturday.  This includes:

1. Calgary to Lake Louise
2. the Icefield Parkway north to Bow Lake
3. west over the Kicking Horse Pass to Yoho Park
4. the side drives to Takakkaw Falls and Emerald Lake
5. the descent of the Kicking Horse Canyon to Golden
6. the ascent of Rogers Pass and return
7. the drive down to Canal Flats and the Columbia Headwaters
8. the return trip north through Sinclair Canyon and Kootenay National Park  

I've been on many trips through mountain country, and always love another one.  But I don't think I've ever had a trip that's given me more opportunity for reflection on life in all its complexity, nor any trip at a time when I have needed that time and space for reflection more than now.