Western Canada - Part 5 - Athabasca Glacier

You might recall, in my last blog, we drove up the stunning Icefields Parkway and ended it with us arriving at the Athabasca Glacier. This glacier is the most visited glacier in North America, so I knew it was going to busy. I planned ahead and we left really early in the morning to get there prior to the crowds. They have two areas where you can access the glacier. The Columbia Icefield Visiting Center and a little parking area just before the glacier. Not many people know about the parking area before the glacier, so I took advantage of it and got us closer for a much shorter walk!

The Athabasca Glacier is the largest of six ice sheets that form part of the Columbia Icefield in Jasper National Park. It is a popular destination for tourists from around the world who climb aboard huge snow coaches to get an up-close look. We weren't going to go on the snow coach. While it would be amazing to go up to the middle of the glacier, it is very costly and we just wanted to get close to it.

As we turned onto the road leading to the parking area, there were small concrete markers showing different years on them. I had read about this before our trip. These markers are to show you how much the glacier has receded throughout the years. The Athabasca Glacier has receded over 1.2 miles since 1844. I wish we could have taken pictures of the glacier and the markers together, so it could show you how much it has melted. It is truly astonishing that it has melted that much in such short of time. It doesn't sound like much, 175 years, but a massive amount of ice melting in such a short amount of time is truly eye opening to global warming and its effects.

At some spots on the drive to the parking area, you couldn't see the glacier at all. When we rounded one corner, the top of the glacier appeared as well as the parking lot. I was so excited that I was going to get up close to a glacier!! For some reason, glaciers fascinate me. I guess one of the reasons could be that for millions of years, they have sculpted our landscape and, along with the weather, they have made the world into what it looks like today. You've got to remember that once upon a time, earth had two massive glaciers that covered almost all of earth. One extending from the north pole and one from the south pole. And as time went by, it receded, bit by bit, carving away the rock and forming them into mountains.

When we saw this sign, we both busted out laughing. For those of you who aren't South Park fans, in the show they make their Canadian characters with their heads shaped like this. Still not sure if it's a joke or not, but funny none the less.

An unnamed glacier above pushes its way between Mt Andromeda and Mt Athabasca. I believe this glacier is unnamed because it is part of the overflow from the icefield.

When we got out of the car, we were hit with a little surprise. The temperature went from being a nice 50 degrees to a cold 28 degrees and very windy. We jumped back into the car and threw on a couple more layers to fight the wind and cold. The parking area is around 6,700 feet and the mountains that surround us were all over 10,000 feet tall, so even though it looked beautiful, it was super cold! The wind was a constant 20 mph at at times and gusts would be over 40 mph!

We layered up and started on the trail to see the glacier. At first, you couldn't see anything at all. We had to get over a few small hills or what they call a glacial moraines. Moraines are piles of dirt and rock that have been carried down and deposited by the glacier. On the trail, there were several kiosks showing you information about the glacier as well as safety info.

And some were actually terrifying...

The trail to the glacier wasn't even a mile long and it contained a lot of amazing

geographical features along the way.

Above are photos of what they call 'tiger stripe' rocks. These rocks are sedimentary layers of dolomite and limestone. The limestone is the darker color while the dolomite is the orange color. These were once underneath the glacier, and now have either been pushed up or left behind when the glacier was receding.

Above is what they call 'glacial striations.' Glacial striations are cuts or gouges made when the glacier was moving material over time. Rocks, sand grains or even the ice cut these lines through the rock when the glacier was either expanding or receding. Glacial striations are all over the world. Even in your back yard! I have seen many of these striations while hiking in the Catskills and Adirondacks.

We finally got over one of the moraines and boom! There she was! It might look small from the picture, but trust me, it was huge!!

The disappointing thing was that we could only come within a couple hundred feet of the glacier. They had rope and signs saying not to proceed beyond certain points. Now when I look back, we could of went over those ropes and gotten closer. The ropes are there as guidelines and if you are aware of what you are doing, you could get closer. it's to sort of control the massive amounts of careless tourists. Since I have hiked on many different landscapes and in all sorts of weather conditions, I know what is safe and whats not. We could of definitely walked closer. I even brought our microspikes in case we could travel onto the glacier and move safely with traction and grip.

Mount Athabasca to the left and Mount Andromeda to the right with the Athabasca Glacier. Both of those mountains are over 11,000 feet tall! We were around 6,200 feet at the bottom or toe of the glacier.

As we approached the glacier, you could see several groups of people walking on the ice. These are guided tours and a professional guide would take you to several places around the glacier. The reason they have professionals do this, is because there are many hazards on the ice, like massive crevasses or cracks in the ice that could be over 50 feet deep. If you fall in, it is highly unlikely that you will be able to get out or be rescued. Some of these crevasses are even over 200 feet deep. There are also spots that have high flowing water underneath.

Close up view of the tours on the glacier. This was taken with my big lens on my camera, so we weren't that close to the glacier.

If you look closely in the middle of the picture, you could see one of the snow coaches taking people to the central part of the glacier. These snow coaches are shaped like buses and have monster truck tires on them. You can also see a group of people to the lower right of the photo on the glacier to show you a size comparison.

Close up view of the snow coach traveling over the glacier. These tours start at $120 per person and after consideration, we couldn't justify spending that amount.

And there she is! In this picture it looks like we were right there along the edge, but we were still a couple of hundred feet away. This was taken with my big lens zoomed all the way in. The glacier was that big. If you look in the center and slightly left, you can see a group of people on the ice. Up on top is where the Columbia Icefield is.

Here's what it looked like from our perspective. I was really disappointed that we couldn't get up close to it. I wanted to actually touch it, but at least it was a beautiful day to see it!

And of course, a selfie had to be taken!

This picture show you a perspective of how far away we were from the actual glacier.

A nice little waterfall from the melting of the glacier.

A close up picture of the Dome Glacier. The Dome Glacier is another off flow of the Columbia Icefield.

Another close up view of glacial striations caused by the glacier. I spot them in the Catskills sometimes when I'm hiking. Although they aren't quite as amazing as these, the striations in the Catskills are much, much older than these, by thousands of years. So therefore, they have had more time to wear down from weather and other factors.

Above is a shot of the Athabasca Glacier from the Columbia Icefields Discovery Center. A truly amazing perspective of the glacier. We were both in awe of how it looked from here. The amazing thing is that this parking lot is usually packed full. You see, getting to popular places early has its benefits! I also planned this trip to Canada in the off peak season, before the crowds start coming in. Also remember that the glacier, about 100 years ago, use to be all the way up to where we were currently standing.

A panoramic view from the upper parking lot showing the Athabasca Glacier and the Snowdome Glacier to the right.

A comparison of photos showing you the retreat of the the glacier. The black and white to the left is from 1919. on the right is from 2004 I believe (I had to look it up online).

A great photo of the Snow Dome Glacier. This glacier use to be the whole width of that mountain. Global warming has contributed to the melting of this glacier dramatically.

A panoramic photo from the balcony of the visitor center. We checked out the inside of the center which was jammed full of tourists. About five or six buses had just pulled into the visitor center plus other people were pulling into the parking lot. We got there just in time!! We took a look around, used the restrooms and headed back out to the car. Now what? The trip home? A hike? Check it out on the next blog!!