Silverhorn Creek - Rockies time

After the ice-cream overload of Dinosaur Park, we planned to head west, towards Vancouver Island our final destination. We had a plan for later nights but the first one was very "open". Being a bit adverse to the concept of first come first served on some of the (pretty busy) campsites run by the Park Authorities, we made a decision to simply retrace our steps. We arranged a spot back at the Bow Riversedge campsite so that we could raid the supermarkets there before we headed into the National Park proper where provisions and fuel are less widely available. So, we overnighted there, once again amazed at how empty the National Highway no 1 was. We raided the Canadian supermarkets (sorry Walmart),topped up with good price fuel ($1.34 Canadian per litre, around the same price in dollars as pounds in the UK. At the time of our visit a Dollar was worth around 55p so you can work out how much cheaper!) We enjoyed a peaceful night there before venturing into the National Park proper.

You can get the idea of how the topography changes on the trip from this satellite image of our route from Cochrane to Silverhorn Creek:

Yes, as we drove west so it got more and more spectacular. This view from the truck kind of hinted at what was to come:

and as we got closer so it became more and more tempting:

We stopped at the National Park entrance kiosks to buy our park passes, and the crew had great delight in telling the lady that we needed "one adult and one senior" pass. The captain managed the humiliation happily though as his pass was way cheaper. Then he remembered that we have a joint bank account. Must be an age thing. Stopping off on the roadside for a break and to make tea, this kind of view was pretty typical:

and as you can see, the weather was kind and the little rest areas were hardly full (until the truck and Airstream arrived of course):

Note that there were still no nasty dents in the Airstream (on both sides actually, just don't want to bore you with too many "Silver bullet" pictures)

We made it to Silverhorn Creek campsite in perfect time and had a nice quiet spot to settle into. A late lunch involved digging out the Wurlitzer organ like gas BBQ and carefully cremating some meat, veg and corn cobs:

That was the standard method of cooking every day and very good indeed. Each campsite had an outdoor dining table ready for use too. Perfect.

Some folks were enjoying the great outdoors, but not in the same level of style or comfort that the Airstream offered us:

Watching the owners hitch that to an antique rusty truck and strap stuff to the roof the next morning was interesting. Looking at their attire, we kept our distance as we feared that the odours would have been quite pungent,

The view from our dining table was not too shabby really:

and we decided that we rather liked the Rockies and exploring by Airstream. Even better there was no mobile phone reception there so it was a most peaceful stay.