"Just passing through!" a Banff Travel Page by rwlittle

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A friend and I passed through Roger's Pass and Banff twice in a week: once on the way to Edmonton, to attend the 27th Annual Canadian Undergraduate Physics Conference (we gave a talk), and once on the way back.

So, we drove from Vancouver to Edmonton, and it took a lot longer than we'd anticipated, as we hit snow storms which slowed us down as we drove up into each mountain range. We hit Roger's Pass at about 11 pm, and for the next hour there was no-one on the road but us, and we were even outside radio reception range. So, my friend is driving in the snowstorm, it's dark and late at night, and so I read him every single road sign we passed, to make sure he and I stayed awake. Let me tell you, there were a lot of these signs which read "Don't stop, avalanche area"! Very comforting, that. After a while, various cursewords became interspersed with the warning messages: "Don't the bleep stop, it's a bleeping avalanche area." When we got back into radio reception range, at about 12:30 am, we heard that Roger's Pass had been closed for about 90 minutes, due to the storm....explaining why we'd seen nobody but a moose up there. We eventually got into Edmonton at about 5 am, very tired and road-weary.

So, coming back, we knew we had to have a memento of the experience, so we, uh, pulled over as we approached one of the "Dont Stop, avalanche area" signs, and snapped a couple of photos. The photo above is me urging quiet, so as to not trigger an avalanche. Meanwhile, the car engine is still running, behind my friend the photographer.

I'd still likely stop to take the photo, even today...what's life without the memories?