A walk up Tunnel Mountain
Banff, in Alberta, Canada, is a resort town near the eastern edge of the spectacular Rocky Mountains. Being in one of Canada’s prestigious national parks, opportunities for short walks through to long hikes abound.
My wife, Fiona and I were in Banff for a few days in early June, several years ago, and took the opportunity to walk up Tunnel Mountain, a 4.3 km return trip with a steady climb gaining 260m from a starting base of 1468m. The start of the track is only 1km from the centre of town.
Being a sunny but cool Sunday morning there were many walkers out, many also taking their dogs along for a run.
The track gradually ascends through a series of zig-zags, through stands of Lodgepole Pines and Western Hemlock. Gaps in the trees give views of the Bow River and its spectacular falls, and the world famous Banff Springs Resort Hotel.
Eventually we reach a ridge which gives us views, over a spectacular bluff, in the other direction of the Banff Springs Golf Course and Lake Minnewanka, a natural lake that has been dammed to provide hydro-electricity for the area. In the distance the snow covered peaks
of the Rockies unfold for as far as the eye can see.
A further short walk and we are on the top of Tunnel Mountain, on a small plateau overlooking the town and more magnificent views of snow covered mountains.
Chipmunks boldly solicited food from those admiring the view.
Retracing our steps down, we meet many more walkers still going up, and with whom we exchange greetings. As a reward for our walk, we buy ourselves an enormous ice-cream – a delicious and mouth watering maple and walnut ice-cream in a waffle cone - which we sit on a bench in the sunshine and enjoy.
But there is no tunnel, so why is it called Tunnel Mountain ?
Back in 1882 a team of surveyors were surveying the intended route of the Canadian Pacific Railway which was engaged in a race with its rival, the Canadian National Railway, to be the first to build a railway line linking Central Canada with Vancouver.
Major A B Rogers, the team leader assumed that the easiest path would be to follow the Bow River Valley, and proposed that a tunnel be built under what is now known as Tunnel Mountain.
It was expected to take 18 months, and cost nearly $1m, a large sum of money back then.
The General Manager of the Canadian Pacific Railway, ever mindful of the race with the Canadian National was aghast at the proposal, exclaiming “Are we going to hold this railway up for a year and a half while we build their damned tunnel ?”
Eventually a shorter route was found that did not require tunnelling. But the name has stuck, and to this day it is still known as Tunnel Mountain.
And the fate of Rogers – he was summarily dismissed.