About another hour south of the Icefield Centre, the Parkway rises to a high crest and then descends down a switchback to a bridge across a river. The parkway can be seen way in the distance in this beautiful view:
Here is another nice view of the river and the mountains. The interesting green-blue color of the river is very beautiful and is characteristic of a stream that is glacier-fed. The color comes from the minerals disloved in the water and the very, very fine silt suspended in the water:
When a glacial stream forms a lake, the color is even more damatic. Here is a shot of Bow Lake:
In the south, where the Icefields Parkway joins the Trans-Canadian Highway, we turned west into Yoho National Park and drove toward Field to see the Canadian Pacific Railroad's Spiral Tunnels. Completed in 1909, the tunnels solved a problem the railroad had getting trains over the very steep grades at Kicking Horse Pass. By tunneling two mile-long spirals into the mountain, the over-all grade of the route was reduced enough to make rail connections to the west coast economical.
Here you can see the two portals (openings) of one of the tunnels. A long freight train will exit the upper portal before the last car goes into the lower portal:
