We all got up early today as we were heading north to the Columbia Icefield to see glaciers face to face. As we pulled out of the rv park and onto the Tunnel Mountain Drive, the first thing we saw was a herd of mule deer – 4 females with their babies. We didn’t see any males, but it was a thrill to see anything after the lack of sightings the previous days.
Jimmy had out drive all mapped out. We made it all the way to Lake Louise on highway 1 with no delays, took a right onto highway 93 and headed north. Our first stop was Crowfoot Glacier. Of course, the glacier is not near so large as it was previously. The lower “toe” is gone and the middle “toe” is disappearing, but you could still clearly see the glacier which had created the lake. About 2 miles further along, we stopped at Bow Lake and Bow Glacier. Again, impressive seeing the glacier, and the lake was just beautiful. Then Travis and I suggested that, rather than stopping at all of the points of interest on the way to the Athabasca Glacier, we would prefer to go straight to the glacier before we got too tired from all of the walks available to us. Jimmy concurred.
Athabasca Glacier is on the Icefields Parkway about 75 minutes south of Jasper. There is a really big interpretive center with restaurants available. You can either take the big bus which they use to take visitors out onto the glacier or take a commercial guided tour or go to a parking lot below the glacier and hike (in my case crawl) up what seemed like thousands of feet but which Travis said was probably only about several hundred feet. When you reach the top, it is just plain out old fashioned cold. The wind coming from the ice field above the glacier blowing over all of that ice is cold. But, the glacier is a very dangerous place. We saw multiple signs warning people not to walk out onto the “toe” of the glacier. When you get to the top and see the water flowing out from under the “toe” (the ice melting under the top layer of ice), you can definitely see why it would be unsafe to walk out onto the glacier. They had one sign which indicated that the last four rescue attempts were not successful. For sure, we did not get past the cable fence and cones. In addition, there were signs at various points from the glacier to the parking lot showing where the glacier had been in various years. When I upload the pictures, you will see one showing where the glacier was in 2000 vs. where it is now in 2011. We heard one young mother explaining about the glacier receding. She told him that in 60 years, the glacier might not be there at all. We only saw one sign referencing global warming and greenhouse gases as the reason for the glacier receding. It really doesn’t matter what is causing the glaciers to “die”. The fact is – they are receding. I am so glad that we got to see all of these in the Icefields as well as the ones we saw when we were at Glacier National Park on our last trek out this direction. It was quite educational. Travis and I agreed that the Athabasca Glacier was the highlight of the trip so far.
From the Athabasca Glacier, we headed back towards Lake Louise to take in all of the sites we had skipped when we decided to go to the end of the day’s trek and work our way back. Our first stop on the way back was Parker’s Ridge. It is described in the map as a short (2.4 km/1.5 miles) but steep (250m/820 feet elevation gain) trail through alpine meadows which will reward hardy hikers with stunning view of the Saskatchewan Glacier. From the parking lot, one could see the start of the elevation increase. We heard a young man who had just returned from the top explaining that the trail began as a paved walkway, but about halfway up turned into a rocky, steep path. A decision was made that 1.5 miles out and 1.5 miles back equaled 3.0 miles of more than we wanted to do that late in the day. So, back into the Jeep we climbed and proceeded to Saskatchewan River Crossing. Basically, it is an area where highways meet with various services such as fuel, food, snacks and stuff. We bought cokes and snacks and headed back out.
Our next stop was Mistaya Canyon. It is a 10 minute walk to great canyon views. The booklet said to stay away from the canyon edge as you watch the rushing waters and eroded potholes and arches in the rock wall. It was not a bad walk. But, you will see from Travis’ pictures that they were serious about staying away from the canyon edge and the rushing waters. There is a bridge which crosses the river. You can look straight down to where the water is rushing past the most marvelous formations that you can imagine – all of which were formed by the water over thousands of years. Of course, I did not venture out onto the rocks which stuck out over the waters. Jimmy and Travis, however, and got some great pictures of the canyon and its waters. Thank goodness Travis was with us – not just because we wanted him to join us in our adventures – but because he takes much better pictures than I do!!!
Our last stop before hitting the road to Lake Louise was Waterfowl Lake. We didn’t really do anything there other than looking at the campground.
By the time we got back to the campground in Banff, we were all pretty tired. Thankfully, polling of the three of us indicated that warming up a container of the spaghetti which I had made and frozen back home in Holly Springs was a great idea for dinner. I also thawed out a package of the pork loin which I had cooked at home. Those two items with a nice salad made for an enjoyable, quiet evening. Afterwards, we went into town to do some souvenir shopping. I had seen some really cute bear hats at the top of Sulphur Mountain when we rode the gondola. No one else had the brown bear ones. To get a brown bear hat, we would have had to pay $29.95 to ride the gondola to the top. It just wasn’t worth it, plus I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be that brave again. So, we agreed that the rock that we picked up at the glacier would make a perfect souvenir of our time in Canada.
Tomorrow, we take Travis back to Calgary to catch his flights home. We will return to the campground for one last evening, as we are leaving for Waterton Township, Alberta, Canada. We were here our last trip out here, but since we saw animals there the last time and had no luck in Banff, we thought it would make a good stop on the way to Holly Springs.
Pictures will be uploaded as soon as I have a stable enough wifi network to which I can connect.
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