An example of the lunches we were given on the tour.
The guide would take ingredient suggestions, buy food,
and the guests can make their sammich lunches to their liking.
On this day, I made a wrap. With blueberries and a banana for dessert.
Mistaya River cuts deep canyons into the rocks. The river feeds from Peyto Lake,
which we visited, but we'll come back to that later.
I followed a mystery path into the woods.
I had been told this path was a loop, but I was apparently led astray.
Had I continued on this path, I probably would have walked away into the woods
and have been eaten by a moose.
The trail was not a loop. I was an out and back.
With this path not in any way related to the original path to the canyon.
The weather was a bit rainy, but manageable.
Fortunately, I had remember to pack a rain jacket.
It's an amazingly beautiful place though.
Look at the erosion.
It is very loud here.
Carefully get yourself out onto the rocks.
It'll be a rough ride if you fall into the river here!
After the Mistaya Canyon, we got back into the van, and headed to the Columbia Icefields
in Jasper National Park, Alberta.
Behind me in this picture is the glacier we will be walking on.
The Athabasca Glacier. You will meet is shortly.
Had about twenty minutes to hop into the visitor center to use the
bathroom, connect to the Wi-Fi for a hot minute, and buy this
cute toque from the gift shop.
A toque is Canadian for what Americans usually call a
beanie, stocking hat, or knit cap.
And, it turns out, that pompoms on hats had an historical purpose.
They helped to protect the heads of sailors from bonking into
low ceilings while crawling around in small spaces on ships.
Anyway, both of us guests had paid the very reasonable cash fee of $85 US ($115 Moosedollars)
to join the glacier walk that afternoon.
I don't remember this being mentioned on the itinerary, but it
sounded interesting and the price tag wasn't too outrageous.
When will I get to walk on a glacier again?!
Anyway, I had to remind myself what a glacier was, so I looked it up
when I later found another Wi-Fi spot.
A glacier is a slow moving mass of ice, snow, rock, and assorted
sediments that move downhill due to gravity.
The movement scrapes and crushes rock and sediments, creating
the rock flour that flows into the glacial lakes.
After checking in and signing our "you could die doing this" legal waivers,
we were told to layer up, given snow pants to wear over our own pants, given
an ice walking stick, and a pair of crampons, which are spikes that you
can fit over your shoes. The crampons help you from slipping and
sliding around on the ice.
I am so hot.
The extra layers.
Why is Canada so hot?!
Ah, a slab of ice. That'll cool me off!
We had to walk about a half mile up the moraine just to reach the glacier.
Here were are technically on the glacier, but it is the sediment part.
There is ice just below the rocky bits.
Ready to put on our crampons. We had carried them to walk the path up the rocks,
but now we were ready to cross the wooden plank and step onto the glacier.
In the upper left of this fashionable crampon picture, you will see the plank
that we walk across.
Notice my double layer pants. My legs are boiling.
We're on it!
crunch, crunch, crunch on the ice.
This part is relatively smooth and safe, a good place to get used to
walking with spikes on your feet.
Our guide told us how to walk down slopes and cross water streams without
slipping by using the crampons.
That tiny whitish lump below the mountain is the visitor center
and the parking lot.
After we had walked inwards for a bit, we were shown the streams of melted
water flowing through the ice.
Glacier water.
The guide told us that we could taste it, but had to do a pushup for it.
What he meant is we had to straddle the stream in a pushup position,
go down and take a sip, and push up again.
I successfully did my pushup and sipped my first taste of glacier water!
So cold and clear and no real taste. No minerals to flavor it.
We had been told to bring our water bottles, emptied, with us.
The guide filled our water bottles with glacier water!
I enjoyed every drop. Sluurp!
There are large crevasses on the glacier.
These are rather dangerous.
The water moves fast, the crevasses are deep, and the water
is barely above freezing.
If you fell in, you're pretty much absolutely going to die from
hypothermia.
This one was a mystery to the guides.
The water goes into it, but they weren't sure where it
came out.
Chilling.
Our group of about six or seven ice walkers were respectful and
careful to not get too close to the edges of the crevasses.
Even with spikes on your shoes, it's all to easy to imagine yourself
falling into the crevasse and never getting back out.
The guides all carry lengths of rope, but it would be a
recovery mission, not a rescue.
The other small group of walkers we met along the walk.
They are ending their walk and heading back down the moraine.
There's that word again.
A moraine is rocks and sediment left behind by glaciers.
Usually in the form of ridges or waves.
There are markers between the visitor center and this glacier that
mark where the glacier has been at certain times.
If I had visited this glacier when I was a one-year old baby,
I wouldn't have had to walk an extra half-mile just to get to it.
It is sobering to think about how much the glacier has shrunk
in the past 100 years, which is about where the markers begin.
So darn hot.
I rested my toque on the walking stick to let my hot head air out.
Glacier, bebe!
The ice extended for at least 15km beyond that opening in the mountains.
Maybe further, I can't remember the exact figure the guide gave me.
We walked about halfway onto the ice sheet before turning back
and starting the trek back down the moraine.
The weather was starting to turn.
Cold air blows into this gap and that cold air keeps the glacier cold,
even though it does melt.
Clouds had gathered and it was starting to get colder.
I was finally starting to feel less boiling hot and
for a rare moment (for me, anyway), I was enjoying the cold.
But rain was starting to roll in too, so we took of the crampons
(after reaching the rocks), scrambled back down the moraine to the
parking lot and headed back to the visitor center.
Heck, yeah!
Heading back to Banff from the Icefields, we made a quick stop
to view Peyto Lake.
Do you see the wolf head?
This was more interesting thing to me though.
See the rock flour water flow into the lake?
Hello, Banff.
Cute little ski town.
I bought a Banff National Park sweater here.
So that makes me one of the cool kids, I guess.
A rainy night camping in Banff.
My tent is dry though, so it was a reasonably peaceful
night of sleeping in the woods.
We were told there was a coyote running around the
campgrounds, so please don't leave food out
unattended. The coyote was going after small dogs, though,
not my veggie burger. Well, probably not my veggie burger.
And that's the story of how I met my glacier.
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