From Vancouver to Banff in three minutes


A big part of what makes the Rocky Mountaineer train trip so spectacular is the diversity of terrain you pass through. Starting off at sea level in Vancouver, the train slowly passes through the fertile Fraser Valley (which, you quickly realize, got that way as the Fraser River washed rich silt down from the forested Canadian Rockies over thousands of years), past the great Shuswap Lake area, its foggy waters a rich riparian habitat, and then up through Glacier National Park, through the gaps in Van Horne and Ottertail mountains right up to Stephen at the Continental Divide, 5,332 feet above sea level and the point that separates the Pacific and Atlantic watersheds. It’s kind of cool, at this point, to see the streams and rivers running in the other direction, away from the Canada’s west coast.

And all this takes place during the day, since you overnight at hotels in towns along the way. I wanted a way to show this diversity of terrain—how the countryside changes from minute to minute, hour to hour, and the only way I could think of really giving you a good idea of what it looks like was to put together a short three minute video that shows the passing of the countryside from our departure at Vancouver to our arrival in Banff.

I also wanted to remind you to enter the Woolrich Adventures Sweepstakes for a chance to win this exact trip. (Full disclosure: I have absolutely no stake in the sweepstakes and receive no payment, monetary or otherwise, from Woolrich or the folks of the Rocky Mountaineer; I just think it’s a very cool trip and would like to see two of my readers win the sweepstakes!)

To register for the sweepstakes, go here.

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