Stromboli's Rolling Log: Day 71, Tuesday June 12, 2018, The beautiful mountains and icefields of British Columbia

First I want to thank those who have been watching, following or reading the blog. Today was the highest total for viewing of the trip.. The three top countries FOR TODAY ONLY in order are; Spain (163 followers), United States (98 followers), and The Netherlands (16 followers) today . That's almost 300 readers today only! Considering the Netherlands has fewer people and is much smaller, That's a great total and 50% more than their average. United States stays at about 100 per day.

Today's journey was from the cities along the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia to the town of Golden that lies west of the Continental Divide and along the Columbia River. Yes that is the same Columbia river that flows out to the Pacific at Astoria, Oregon. Many people do not know that it starts in SE British Columbia and flows north , turns sharply and turns south for many 100s of miles into the USA. Some facts about the Columbia ...
"The Columbia begins its 1,243-mile (2,000 km) journey in the southern Rocky Mountain Trench in British Columbia (BC). Columbia Lake – 2,690 feet (820 m) above sea level – and the adjoining Columbia Wetlands form the river's headwaters. The trench is a broad, deep, and long glacial valley between the Canadian Rockies and the Columbia Mountains in BC. For its first 200 miles (320 km), the Columbia flows northwest along the trench through Windermere Lake and the town of Invermere, a region known in British Columbia as the Columbia Valley, then northwest to Golden and into Kinbasket Lake. Rounding the northern end of the Selkirk Mountains, the river turns sharply south through a region known as the Big Bend Country, passing through Revelstoke Lake and the Arrow Lakes. Revelstoke, the Big Bend, and the Columbia Valley combined are referred to in BC parlance as the Columbia Country. Below the Arrow Lakes, the Columbia passes the cities of Castlegar, located at the Columbia's confluence with the Kootenay River, and Trail, two major population centers of the West Kootenay region. The Pend Oreille River joins the Columbia about 2 miles (3 km) north of the US–Canada border."

I cannot tell in words nor describe the beauty that we saw today and it was a brilliant day with the sun shining until after we ate supper in the trailer. I Am going to let the photos tell the story of the sights, the road work, the stoppages, snowfields and glaciers. Some of the small town and hamlets were tempting to stop in to investigate with a heavy emphasis on the out of doors in winter and summer.

Lake Okanagan is 84 miles long, 340 feet deep and 2 miles wide. We drove along one side all the length of t.

The snowfields start to appear around Sicamus , BC, and before Revelstoke.

One of the snow sheds that has still snow left from the winter.
They can be made of steel, prestressed concrete frames, or timber.


There were six snow sheds on Q1, one of which had been demolished by a landslide this winter

More of the glaciers and snowfields appear .

Work on another lane on Q 1.

Resurfacing means , lift, cart, scrape, and pour new surface. All at one time.

Workers transportation

One of the many stops, this one with a long back up.

This brought us to the Ice-fields and glaciers that Ruth, so patiently was trying to get out of the truck window as we went by .There were very few pullouts along these roads as the inclines and mountains edges did not allow for that . We had to keep moving. But she did a fine job.

I wouldn't pretend to know all the mountains names.

Even through the traffic stoppages, there were photo opps.

This one is worth pursuing for its name.

Sheer beauty

A few shots from a Lake (Genesa) that we had a chance to stop by. Then, finally, we arrived at the Whispering Spruce Campground, in Golden. This was more like the old dirt campgrounds and though quite basic , it had all the necessities and a very good Wi Fi. (Important these days).