These past couple of weeks we had been back and forth through the Rockies delivering and reloading in Vancouver. Everytime we came through the Rockies they looked different either due to the weather or time of day. We had forgotten how beautiful Lake Shuswap was, driving alongside and down through Salmon Arm had the best views ever from dawn to dusk. I knew this route so well i did'nt even pick up the map, every village, town, rest area and truck stop, dave still followed his sat nav though! The Coquihalla mountain was set in a range, i'd mentioned it before, it was pretty special. The Coquihalla highway ran from Kamloops to Hope. We'd watched a canadian tv program about a Mr Davis who patrolled the Coquihalla highway with his team of men with breakdown trucks. He was so specialized he could lift a full size rig out of a ditch upright and intact. The programme was along the same lines as Ice Road Truckers, it was fascinating to watch but unfortunately we hav'nt been able to get the dvd. Last saturday we set of back across for delivery in Calgary. We left Hope at 5.30am. We had had heavy snow in the night and upon reaching the Coquihalla highway we were waved into the chain up area with other trucks. It was dark and cold. Dave had never chained up before even when he was here in winter last time. It was warm clothes on and torch in hand we joined the others trying to make sense of these massive heavy chains. It was'nt as bad as we'd thought, we managed to get the chains on and locked into position. The chains went on 2 wheels, the drive axels and were locked with a key. We drove on at 30ml/hr. Over the summit the road cleared so we were able to stop and take them off, of course this was so much easier. There was snow, ice and fog and it was quite scary going through the avalanche areas, we had all that to come! One trip took us back towards Jasper, to Edmonton, the roads through the Rockies here were like an ice rink, not much had been gritted and dave concentrated on keeping the truck on the road. Of course the scenery was amazing, snow laden fir trees, frozen lakes and waterfalls, with mountains tops shimmering in the sunshine, it more than made up for the slow journey. Nearly at Jasper i took some photos off Mount Fitzwilliam looming up infront of us. Upon reaching Edmonton the snow and fog was even thicker. We waited until the next day to get a load back to Calgary and the snow never let up. We were going away again this weekend to Canmore, staying in the Rocky Mountain Inn, dave now had a pair of snow boots too!
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