East, by railroad standards, of the former Albert Canyon station, the tracks enter the middle portion of a broad S curve and head on back to the edge of the Illecillewaet River and the Trans Canada Highway.
The “back door” of my cabin was less that 30 meters from the tracks but protected by an almost impregnable stand of trees and a century of fallen brush but a 5 minute walk up towards the pool and the park offices there was a well used access road that ended in a small trackside parking area. It was built for photography.
By mid morning the sun was high overhead or at my back but whatever the time of day the trees and mountains gave me endless shadows and shades of green. Even on a fine day, the weather offered a backdrop of crystal clear and cloudy or hazy and everything in between.
The nicest thing was that the trains approach echoed up and down the canyon as much as 20 minutes before it could be seen approaching from the west, as in the picture above, and half that time if it was coming down out of Rogers Pass.
So I set up a folding chair that I found in my cabin, picked up some refreshments from the store just a few yards away and set up camp in the shade of my car. Fearful that I might be wandering out on the tracks (It is a resort after all) the crew always gave me a short toot at the first curve.