Thursday September 7th
The next morning started off quite chilly, around freezing. It was starting to get up a bit into the mountains. I was well prepared for cold nights – when needed I had thermals, winter pyjamas, thick socks, two doonas, and a warm sleeping bag I’d bought that I had opened out to make another doona. Even I was quite warm enough with all that, even when it went a bit below freezing. The van seemed to be fairly well insulated too. I would lie on the bed in my clothes before I went to bed to warm it up, and that worked well. I enjoyed a pretty sunrise reflecting on the lake, with cloudy mountains in the background.
I set off to get to Jasper, with some stops along the way planned, and a couple of hikes when I got there. I was thinking about what good time I was making, and driving along through fairly sparsely inhabited country, when suddenly the engine light went on, and the engine started to run quite rough, and lost power. I wasn’t sure what to make of this, but it didn’t sound good! I was still able to drive, but not more than about 55mph. The Lord was good, because there was a tiny town only a few minutes further along where I could pull in, and it had a service station, and also phone reception. I think it was Blue River.
I rang the road service line of the Escape Campervan people. There wasn’t a lot they could do given that I was in Canada, a long way from any of their offices, and in fact a long way from much in the way from civilisation, but while I was on the phone I noticed that the temperature gauge was reading quite hot, and then I found that you could actually see how much coolant was in the reservoir, because it was clear. And there was none!
I was parked next to the service station, so I went in and bought a big container of coolant there, and also asked about places which could repair the van. The guy at the counter suggested a place further on at Valemount that might be able to fix it. I got a really nice lady at the campervan roadside assistance, who was also ringing around looking for someone who could repair it, and wanted me to keep her posted on how I was getting on.
Meanwhile I waited for the temperature gauge to go down, so that it would be safe to open the coolant cap. It took its time doing that, and after a while I took a hand towel I had, put it over the cap, and very gingerly started to open it. Well nothing came out. There really was basically no coolant in the van. I poured in the whole container of coolant, and still nothing showed in the reservoir. I bought another one and poured it in, still nothing in the reservoir. Back to the shop and bought a third one, and got part way though that before it started to fill up. It was clear that there was a coolant leak, but I could still keep going for a while now I had filled it up again.
I made my way to Valemount about an hour further on, to find the place that was recommended. I tracked down the mechanic, who said, no he didn’t do that sort of thing, and another similar place in town wouldn’t do it either. When I tried to ask him if he knew of someone who could fix it, he just turned and ignored me and started talking to someone he’d been speaking to.
Someone had parked right behind me as I was speaking to the guy, but I was stopped anyway, trying to find anyone who could repair the van, and he left after a while. For about an hour I looked on Google for any repairers who might be open and be able to do it, and I think I rang a few, but it was slim pickings, and getting well into Thursday, so the weekend was coming too. I also found I’d driven all the way there with the radiator cap off! Looked like a little bit of coolant had spilled out, but not much thankfully, and rather amazingly the cap hadn’t fallen off where I had rested it on the engine, thank the Lord!
I kept going, and took the turnoff for Jasper not far along from there, along Highway 16, which went through a very scenic area. Rearguard Falls had some lovely views not far from the road, with forest and a river of an amazing striking, slightly milky blue-green, a colour that I would see a good deal more of as I went through the mountains, apparently caused by tiny particles washed down from glaciers.
A bit further along was the very impressive Mount Robson, dominating the landscape. Apparently you can see the top only a few days a year. There were clouds on the summit, but I was able to see most of it, with a lot of snow on the top, and even a glacier or two. This was, I think, the northernmost point of my trip. I made lunch at Mount Robson Park, and ate it at a picnic table with one of the best views I’d had. It had been cloudy, but there were bits of sun coming and going.
It would have been around there somewhere I got a call from the roadside assistance lady who had managed to track down someone in Jasper who would have a look at about 1pm the next day. It was a towing place, which I hadn’t though of calling, but the lady said had worked at a towing place, and so she knew that they sometimes did repairs too.
After lunch the beautiful scenery continued, with a visit to Overlander Falls, which also had iridescent water, forest and mountains as a backdrop, then I drove by Moose Lake, with lovely colours, and more of the ever-present mountains behind it. I got to the Wapiti Campground at around 4pm, and got checked in. It was quite large, and there were a number of different loops, and roads going here and there, and it took a little while to find the right way to my site. After checking it out, I had time for one hike, and decided on the Valley of the Five Lakes one, which was quite close to the campground. I wasn’t keen to do more driving than necessary with the coolant leak.
The hike turned out to be very beautiful. It was quite still, and the lakes had mirror-like reflections on them, as well as being so clear it was possible to see things on the bottom in detail. There was a shorter and longer hike, the longer one went around a large lake as well as visiting other lakes. I took that one, but there wasn’t a lot to see along much of it, just going through the forest. The hike did go to all five lakes though, and they were beautiful colours, and the reflections were amazing, especially with the mountains beyond.
There were some autumn colours in some of it too, which were pretty. The hike took about three hours, finishing up around 7.30pm. I was just over the border from British Columbia into Alberta, which was an hour ahead, and this meant that sunset was nearly 8.30, the latest of anywhere I’d been, which gave me plenty of daylight, though sunrise was later too, but still about 7.15, which left a lot of time to do things. With the place being so far north, the days must have been very long at the solstice.
Comments