Day 5, Sunday, August 27, 2006 (To Lake Louise & David Thompson Resort)
We left the Fernie condo at 9:45AM (669 miles from Seattle) after another great JR breakfast with MS assisting consisting of large Chicken Fried Steaks, homemade gravy and pan fried diced potatoes.
Today was going to be a travel day as we headed north on Highway 3 to Cranbrook, then Highway 93 to Skookumchuck, Fairmont Hot Springs, Radium Hot Springs, Golden, then along the Kicking Horse River on Highway 1, across the BC/Alberta boarder at the Continental Divide arriving at Lake Louise at 3:50PM.
We toured the hotel at Lake Louise, a beautiful resort built at the turn of the century by the Canadian Pacific Railroad to attract tourists from the east. The hotel is set with a backdrop of the azure-blue Lake Louise, surrounded with stupendous mountains and a glacier tumbling into the far end of the lake. Absolutely gorgeous!
A quick stop in the hotel gift shops produced some memorabilia. We were on our way to the David Thompson Resort & the Cline River, but not after getting lost for a while. We were to turn north toward Jasper out of Lake Louise, but were confused by the road signage, ending up turning south toward Banff. Road construction had the traffic at a standstill, but we soon found a turn-around and were back on track.
At Sakatchewan River Crossing on Highway 93 we turned east on Highway 11 toward Cline River running along the side of Abraham Lake.
We drove past the "Icefield Helicopter Tours" facility and arrived at the David Thompson Resort, www.davidthompsonresort.com , email: dtresort@dirctway.com , 1-888-810-2103 ) along the shores of Abraham Lake at 6:45PM. (1,038 miles from Seattle)
We checked into the David Thompson Resort, then asked about Alberta fishing licenses. Come to find out, the nearest licenses were available in Nordegg some 25km away. We took off for Nordegg, seeing deer along the highway. Arriving at the gas station/country store in Nordegg we obtained our licenses ($8.48 WIN license & $43.99 5-day Alberta license) Nordegg has an old mine which is a Provincial Heritage Site (403-721-2625). Other than that, it’s a pretty quiet little town.
Nordegg Nightlife Index of Coming Attractions
More info on David Thompson can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Thompson_(explorer)
Returning to David Thompson Resort, we had dinner at the restaurant, and then returned to our rooms to prepare our gear for tomorrows helicopter trip. We were restricted to a 30 pound gear weight limit, a tough target given that we needed to bring rods, nets, flies, vests, waders & boots, sleeping bags & pads, cameras and warm cloths.
Packing Parachutes?
Anticipation was high looking forward to tomorrows helicopter trip and the possibility of the YG catching their first Golden Trout….it was a restless night.