Puking Snow

2008 DTB
May 8, 2008

Kick off day!

Everyone was to meet at the Village Green Mall, Vernon, BC at 9 AM. Surprisingly, everyone made it. However, most of us started a lot earlier. Gib had his gear packed and piled up in my yard before 6:30 AM and we unhooked the canoe trailer from the Suburban and went up to Stews house and picked up the bunk house. Stew brought the School Bus/Motor Home down to my house and we hooked on the canoes. That sure is a long load!

Lea from the Vernon Daily Courier was on hand, took her pics, a few statements and we were on our way. Life was good until we hit the BC/Alberta border. We knew something was up when the big trucks we were meeting were pulled over on the other side of the road and were chipping ice off their radiators. We had heard that the Banff/Jasper highway and the David Thompson Highway to RMH had a lot of wet snow on it and a phone call to Vic in RMH confirmed our worst fears. RMH already had 6"of snow on the ground and it was snowing heavily. We were advised to take number 1 to Calgary then 22 north to RMH the next day. It started to snow just east of Banff and life got a bit tense. The bus and canoes, although slow on the hills, seemed to go along alright. The Suburban and the bunk house, with a good load, was OK until the last big hill before the Cochrane turnoff. We were down to one lane by this time and the snow flakes were as big as horse turds. Luckily, some a- hole truckers were passing everyone and this squeezed some water out of the slush on the road and we were able to make the grade, so to speak. Lots of pucker marks in the car seats as everyone had faith in Bob the Lawyer's driving but we were all tempted to give unwanted advice at the wrong time. We made it to Cochrane by 8 PM, pulled over and some of the team zipped into a couple of the hotels for showers and a bed and some slept in the Bus. What a day!