Fernie, British Columbia

Monday, August 5, we all left the campground early because its a Holiday here in Canada. We had to travel early to cross the border before it got backed up with Canadians going home from the states. After getting into Canada, at the town of Pincher Creek, they have wind turbines all over the place, we had stopped and looked at one, to hear if there is any noise, not much at all. The area had 149 turbines and the one we stopped at, the tube towers reaching 141 ft., the blades are 95 ft. long and weight is 5 tons.


Parked under wind turbine

On the way to our new campsite, we had stopped at Canada's Deadliest Rockslide, in the town of Frank. On April 29, 1903 at 4:10 am, 30 million cubic meters of limestone crashed from the Turtle Mountain and buried part of the sleeping town. The rock mass that fell was 500 feet deep, 1,400 feet high and 3,280 feet wide. The town was home to approximately 600 people in 1903, most of the roughly 100 individuals who lived in the path of the slide were killed. The primary cause of the slide was the mountains unstable geological structure. Underground coal mining, water action in summit cracks and unusual weather conditions contributed to the disaster. The buried section of railway was rebuilt three weeks after the slide. A road was completed through the slide in 1906 and improved in 1920s.


Turtle Mountain and rocks along side of road


Rock debris

This was a very interesting stop, we had listened to an interpreter talk about the slide. We then traveled on to the next town, Sparwood, and at the visitor Center there is the World's Largest Truck, we had stopped there and took pictures and read the signs. The Titan 33-19, was built in 1974, Kaiser Resources purchased the truck and it was used in the Southern California coal mines. In 1978 the truck was moved to Sparwood BC and used to move earth away from the coal seam in the open pit mines. With the box in a dumping position, this truck is 56' high, nearly the height of 5 elephants stacked on top of each other. The hauler was parked after 300 hrs. for 8 hrs. for regular maintenance, in 1990 the trucks turbo charger failed, repair costs was too high so the Titan was retired from service.


Ken standing at tire


Back of dump truck

After we arrived at the campsite, we are parked at Fernie Alpine Resort, in an open lot where they park cars for the ski season, with no hookups.


We had some free time before a bus came to pick us up for a float ride down the Elk River. The float ride was fun, except it stated to storm before we got to the end, we were all wet and cold.


Walking down to get into the rafts


We had five rafts

We got back to camp, all changed clothes and then had a pizza party. One of the members, had to say goodby, she owns her own pottery business and had to get home, she's from New York and was catching a flight out of Calgary on Tuesday.

Tuesday, August 6, we had a free day. Ken and I decided to go hunt for a laundromat to wash our wet clothes, didn't realize it was such a chore. The one they told us about was really dirty and most of the machines were out of order, we did lose some money there. We then went to look for another, ended up at the information center, they told us of a hotel that we could use, got the laundry done and back to our site. Didn't really do much else, at 5 pm all had happy hour and just talked and relaxed. We did watch the mountain to see the ghost rider and Indian, when the sun is going down.


Do you see the ghost rider and Indian?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad