June 29 2011 Chilliwack British Columbia

Wildlife Crossings over the road

Mother bear and 2 cubs

Avalanche tunnels

Lights in the tunnel

playing frisbee in traffic jam

Wednesday June 29 2011
Left Banff at 9:30 heading to Chilliwack.  Thought we would stop half way but ended up driving straight thru.  We took the Trans Canada all the way to #5 at Kamloops then south to catch up with Trans Canada again.  Just outside of Banff heading to Lake Louise we saw 2 big elk on side of road, didn't get picture though we didn't see them till last minute.  A short distance later we saw people pulling over on the side of the road with cameras (about 5 cars) we saw a mother bear and her two cubs.  We pulled over but there were so many people that they were heading back into the bush.  Got a couple pics though, pretty cool to see them.   Crossed into British Columbia at 10:30am.  Stopped in Golden to get diesel $1.31.1 at noon.  We had to go down at 10 mile hill at a 6% grade - Hank did it without using the breaks, just using the transmission, worked out well.  Going thru Rogers Pass they had avalanche tunnels.  At 1:00 we heard that highway #1 was closed at Agassi, which is right before Chilliwack, due to a mudslide.  Made us start thinking of ways to get around there, as we had decided that we would try to make it to Chilliwack since the driving was going so well.  It was 73 F in Salmon Arm, we left Banff at 58F  and have seen everything in between.  Diesel in Salmon Arm $1.22/l.  Got deisel in Merrit, same price.  We have had nice roads since Banff, some construction in Alberta but not much in BC.    There is no fuel for 110km after you leave Merritt heading west.    We were close to Hope BC and the GPS said 45 minutes to our campsite in Chilliwack, BUTTTTTTTT, we were now in a traffic jam due to the mudslide.  They were re routing everyone thru Hope, what a mess.  The landslide happened at 11am this was just before 6pm and still traffic was backed way up.  It was stopped for 20 minutes then move slow then stop then slow finally into Hope, then stop for a good 1/2 hour or more,  make a long story short our 45 minutes to campground took a little over 4 hours.  We didn't get here till about 10:15pm.  We were exhausted and glad to get stopped.  The guy put us in a site close to the front (a drive thru) for the night.  It was really noisy as it is close to the trans canada highway.  But he said we could look at other sites tomorrow and see if we could find something else towards the back where it is quieter.  We didn't even unhook, just had a drink, a quick bite to eat (no supper) then to bed.