Jasper National Park

Sunday July 2, 2006

The alarm sounded early this morning so we could get on the road up to the Columbia Icefield by 7:00 am. The trip was about 180 km and heads up the famous Icefields Parkway, calling itself “the most beautiful road in the world”. I can’t vouch for that statement, though it was pretty impressive. It basically runs up the spine of the Canadian Rockies, from Lake Louise to Jasper, past alpine lakes, up and around snow covered mountains and glaciers. We got to the Icefield Centre in about 2 hours and investigated to see what’s what. The Columbia Icefield is the largest piece of ice south of the Arctic Circle, about 5 times the size of Manhattan. (That’s what they say on the brochure, though I’m assuming they mean largest ice in the Northern Hemisphere, south of the Arctic Circle. I mean, it’s big, but it’s got nothing on the ice sheets in Antarctica.) At the edge of the icefield is the Athabasca Glacier, the part of the ice sheet that is closest to the visitor’s center and easiest accessible to the public. After a trip into the visitor’s center we found out that they don’t allow you to just walk out on to the glacier (except at the toe of the glacier for about 10 feet) because of the danger of all the crevasses that line the glacier. So the choices are either: a) Pay for an overpriced snow-coach trip onto the glacier; b) pay for an even more expensive walking tour of the glacier; c) walk the 10 feet on from the toe. Since we didn’t want to miss out on anything we paid the high prices and went for the 1 ½ hour snow-coach tour. We had to take a bus to the snow-coach loading area, then the snow-coach takes us about 1 mile up the glacier. The snow-coach is basically a bus on HUGE wheels that goes a top speed of 12 MPH. On our tour was a large group of Japanese, and we found out from the driver that there are almost the same number of Japanese tourists who visit the Icefield than there are American tourists. (Considering the US border is only a 4 hour drive away, I found this amazing.) In fact, when we got to the “turnaround” (the area where the snow-coaches stop and let us all walk around like penguins) I would say that 50% of the folks on the glacier were Japanese. Anyway, the area that we were allowed to walk around was quite small, again because they don’t want anyone to fall into a crevasse or to hit a soft spot in the ice. (Apparently they have about 1-2 deaths a year from people who venture too far and fall.) We spent about 20 minutes walking around the small area, looking at the snow, looking at the ice, watching the glacial melt run down the glacier, etc. Really exciting stuff. It was really warm today, probably about 75 degrees down by the visitor center, but it felt more like 45 degrees on the ice. (And there was one couple who was a bit unprepared for walking on a glacier. The guy had a t-shirt and shorts on, and was wearing docksiders without any socks. His wife/girlfriend/mistress was wearing a tank top, a mini skirt, and flip flops. Practical.) After a few pictures we were on the snow-coach for our trip back to the visitor’s center.

After the tour we decided to hike up to the “toe” of the glacier, basically where it ends on the way down the mountain. It was amazing to see the markers they had placed on the moraines up to the glacier, marking the extent of the glacier in years past. Even in 1992 it had extended a good ½ mile farther down the valley than where it is now. We walked up to the point where the ice meets the dirt, and they have cones and safety tape marked out where it’s safe to walk. But of course we saw about 2 dozen people go past the tape and start walking anywhere they wanted. (And this is right next to about 10 signs stating how dangerous it is on the ice, how an 8-year old boy fell through a crevasse not too far from the area in 2002 and died.) After a few minutes on the toe, we made our way back to the car for the drive back to Banff.

We got back to our place around 2:30 pm and started to get organized for the rest of our trip. We did some research on driving to North Dakota plus all the stops we’re going to make on the way back. Tomorrow is going to be a long driving day as most of it is in Canada on the Trans-Canada Non-Highway. Hopefully we can get to the Teddy Roosevelt National Park area by tomorrow night so we can have the rest of the next day at the park. We also got some hotels and info for the next week in South Dakota. After cooking up a dinner of Montreal chicken and rice we got ourselves organized for the ride back east. Tomorrow is the beginning of the trip home, as we turn east for the first time on the trip.