Leaving Vancouver saw the Mountaineer follow the Fraser River for many kilometers. This area is famous for salmon and for some reason 2 years ago the total run amounted to only 2.2 million. This caused great consternation in the scientific community because it was well below the normal run. Global warming, pollution, over fishing etc were blamed. However to everybody's amazement last year the run went to 37 million. Nobody has come up with an explanation so far. The salmon sold that year for around $2 a pound!?!
The Rocky Mountaineer today is 25 carriages long pulled by 2 x 3000 horsepower diesel locos. It is an older, but tastefully refurbished train with large windows, plenty of legroom and enormous amounts of food to support our ever expanding waistlines! Every day we determined to reduce our food intake and every day we failed abysmally.
We climbed around 300 meters over 460 km to Kamloops where we stayed overnight. What can I say - the scenery was stunning. Moving from river valley agriculture to heavily forested hills and mountains to Soma desert. All the way we followed the Fraser River which changed from fast moving rapids to placid lakes. Later it was joined by the Thompson River. Enormous amounts of fresh water flowed in each: the Fraser carried lots of silt and the Thompson was a beautiful blue colour.
The changes in scenery over the day made the journey really interesting as the exhausted batteries in our cameras attested. What will we do with all the photos?
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