Athabasca Glacier and the Columbia Icefield

Laura Domela — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 20:45:11 +0000

We left Banff the other day and drove the Icefields Parkway toward Jasper. We decided to stay at the campground/parking lot at the visitor center for the Athabasca Glacier and it was one of the coolest views ever.

We got (kinda) level and then headed up to the glacier in one of the Ice Explorers. What a blast! When Kevin and I were here before, we hiked up onto the glacier from the bottom and that seemed pretty cool, but nothing even close to as cool as what we did yesterday. I'm about to post far too many photos. Oh well.

Tiny black dot at the end of the road is one of the Ice Explorers on the glacier:

Kyle trying the glacier water:

Kevin walking around on the ice (looking back down at our tiny tiny Airstreams):

Tiffani and Deke:

We took a bus from the visitor center to this spot where we transfered to the huge-tired Ice Explorer to go out onto the glacier. You can see one here about to head down the hill.

We all had a BLAST! We got back to the trailers and set up our chairs and the little propane heater and had dinner and watched the stars for a bit. It was lovely.

I'll post more photos from the drive later.

Icefields Highway – Riveted

Athabasca Glacier and the Columbia Icefield