Tracks of the StoneBear BNF = Banff, BC/ Alberta journey
ROF = Ring of Fire journey
British Columbia/ Alberta, Canada
Monday August 18, 2014 BNF 3
BNF 3 Hell's Gate , British Columbia
I have been to hell. ... and back. Several times in my life.
It's good for your friends to know that you've been to hell,... been through hell,... lived through hell,... looked hell in the eye,... spit in it and survived; and I'm still here kicking around.
Left Hope, BC British Columbia... a neat town and a main jumping off point for heading north into the BC wilderness... points north of the klondike... Whitehorse, Yukon, Dawson City, and Alaska.
The original route plan was to drive Hwy 5 to Kamloops... and on to Lake Louise. Change of plans... Drove north on ALCAN Hwy 1 to see Hell's Gate.
Driving up the Fraser River... The Mighty Fraser... Fraser River Canyon is steep lining the Canadian woodland forest on each side of the river.
About 25 miles north of Hope, BC we come to Hells Gate... now a tourist attraction with a skyway gondola 500' down to the river.
****
The history is.... from Wikipedia: The name Hells Gate was derived from the journal of explorer Simon Fraser, who in 1808 described this narrow passage as "a place where no human should venture, for surely these are the gates of Hell."[1]
*****
Hwy 1 is only a few yards from the upper gondola area. $19 a ticket was a little steep but for a trip to Hell I thought... what the hell; I will only get to this hell one time in my life journey.
The history is... the Canadian Pacific RR built a RR line up the Fraser Canyon around 1880. The Canadian Northern RR tried to build an adjacent RR track in 1911 and the difficulty of the sheer steep rock canyon collapsed in a building disaster.
The Fraser River... only 35 yards wide at this place... cut into the rock canyon is like a funnel... a raging torrent of a river. It's impossible to cross here. It is like hell to try and cross... you would be swept into the raging currents for sure.
Ride the red gondola down... the view of the canyon and river is really good... puts this view into perspective.
In the light brown color of the Fraser River swirling around... river is flowing at 30+? MPH. ... it is a raging river hell.
Steep canyon sandstone rock walls... vertical in places. Comes down river to a narrow passage in the rock. The pix don't do justice to measure how wild and fierce this point on the Fraser is.
This river point is carved out... eroded out of 10,000 years of glacial melt ice dams carving out the sandstone canyon.
Immediately past the "gate" of the river is the eddy swells. You can see the river torrents swirling and know any small boat or river craft is to be tossed around like a rag doll.
The gondola and dozen people reach the bottom landing. On the west side of the canyon is some shops built over the years... this is a tourist place. Some candy and ice cream shops... souvenirs... refrigerator magnets of Hell's gate.
Some pioneer artifacts like a wood burning stove that cooked for the 1800's workers.
A steel grating walkway bridge goes out over the river. The wind is 35 to 40 mph racing down the canyon. This place cannot be tamed. Yes a tourist spectacle is here in modern times... a hundred years ago this was a look at hell.
A couple of RR trains ran through on each side of the canyon while on the bridge.... powerful to see CP and CNI running with freight up and down this canyon. One of the trains looks like the passenger line "The Rocky Mountaineer" RR.
Tucked into the upper cafe just to get out of the wind... it's that bad. enjoyed a bowl of hot chowder. Look down the canyon/ river of some river runner power boats... inflatable pontoon rigs with 450hp engines coming up the river and float around in the swirls of turbulence of Hell's gate.
A couple of pix of the tourist part and walk back out onto the bridge over the river... wind at 30+ mph. What a place!!!
Had enough and load up into the gondola to go back up with a dozen other folks.
Pix of the river and canyon going back up.
Further up river is Boston Bar, BC ... on up to Cache Creek, head east and see some beautiful Canadian country on the way to Kamloops, BC.
This is the same Fraser River that flows down through British Columbia that empties out at Steveston, BC that we visited the last night out of BC. ... Also see the Steveston, BC post.
I have been to Hell's Gate! and back... and am glad to see this in my time of life.
You never drink twice from the same stream.
