A Passage in Time

 

When I woke this morning it took all of 10 minutes for me to decide that I was going to stay another night in Merritt.

The motel that I am at is costing me $55 per night. Provincial camp grounds can be as much as $42. The weather man is calling for – yes – cold and rain all day. I will let you do the math.

I went down to the office – paid for another night and gave the owner the requested $6 to do my laundry for me.

That set me free for the day. So. What to do.

A quick glance back over some of the route and sights advice that another rider, Dusty Boots, had given me allowed me to realize that I had missed something yesterday.

It seems that the small town of Hope, BC actually has some real history behind it. As well as some Hollywood history.

In the early 1900’s, in a quest to keep American railroad companies from monopolizing a Canadian raw materials and minerals market, a bold engineering feat saw the creation of the Kettle Valley Railway Line – and with it, the Othello Tunnels. Abandoned decades later, the old KVR now stands as part of the Trans Canada Trail through this part of Western Canada / Southern BC. There is a lot of written material about this incredible project – this article here is the most well written that I have read.

What the article cannot convey to you, the reader, is the almost prehistoric-like setting that the Othello Tunnels rest in. The trees are covered in a fur-like moss from root to branch-tip. The ferns grow to incredible heights, and the lush green foliage is alive with the sounds of birds and small creatures, their animated sounds at times muted by the roar of the Coquihalla River as it smashes it’s way through the Coquihalla gorge and canyons. I have never seen such vibrant greens in any forest that I have walked – this place is lost in time, a virtual boreal rainforest where one almost expects to hear the screech of a velociraptor, or the roar of a T-Rex.

It is a place that we have not yet destroyed. More, it is a place that we have come to admire – yearn for and bask in. A place of energies. And of healing. Of mysteries and mysticism. And stories. Ah, the stories.

Another of these being, of course that this is also the location for most of the filming of the first Rambo movie, titled First Blood. Many films have been shot on location in Hope over the years, but First Blood has given the town it’s spot on the map, and it’s pet name – RamboTown.

I wanted to walk the original steel bridge from the beginning of the movie, where the sheriff (Brian Dennehy) drops John Rambo off and encourages him to keep on walking – but that piece of movie history is gone. Demolished in 2011, it has been replaced by a span of no character, and no charm.

I took a picture of the original pilings – all that remain of Rambo’s bridge.

All that remains of Rambo Bridge.

The above mentioned Othello Tunnels also have a Rambo tie-in. It was on the sheer face of tunnel number 2 that Rambo is seen clinging for his life as the camera does a long, slow pan of the gorge and it’s deadly resident, the Coquihalla River far below. This two-fold piece of history has made the Othello Tunnels a bit of a tourist hot-spot. People come to relive John Rambo’s heroics, though only viacriously – and leave having learned about the real life heroics of engineer Andrew McCulloch.

Once again – lives enriched.

My trip to and from Hope necessitated travelling through the Cascade Mountains once again. The highest elevation on the Merritt to Hope route is at the Coquihalla Summit – 4081 feet. In the pouring rain, at 6 degrees – it was frigid. It was also breathtaking. The clouds were surrounding me and I swear I could smell them – I was reminded of a childhood thought – that heaven must smell like clouds. I now know what clouds smell like. And maybe heaven too.

Scientists are predicting an astral event over the next few days. Apparently there is to be an incredible display of hydrogen fusion in a star 7 light-years away from earth. The heat rays produced by this nuclear event are predicted to cause a warming of the areas that I am about to travel through.

Here comes the sun.

Todays pictures – some of them are truly wonderful – can be seen here.

Put away the rain gear for a couple of days. Put on your denims and your leather vest.

Things are about to be turned up a notch.