Thursday, June 26, 2014

Joining the Lake Louise area with Jasper was the Icefields Parkway.  It was billed as "The Most Beautiful Highway in the World".  I don't have any reason to doubt their claim.  We passed some glass smooth lakes reflecting trees and mountains beyond.  I should have stopped, but I was determined to see the glaciers and I thought we could always see the same thing on another morning (turned out I was wrong).

We saw another black bear bounding down the center of the road.  The car in front of us got a little too close and he headed into the woods, but not before Joani captured him in a few shots.

The Icefields Center was the central point for almost any of the tours, so it was very busy.

Taken from the balcony of the Icefields Center.  You can see the glacier beyond the highway.

The people walking on the glacier are but tiny dots.

Zoomed in on the glacier, the ancient snow looks rather nasty.

I wanted to visit the Glacier Skywalk.  It had a glass floor and glass rails cantilevered nearly a thousand feet over a canyon.  

Below was a fast moving river turned gray with glacial flour.  Across the canyon were impressive peaks covered with snow pack more than 300 feet thick.  We found out the skywalk had just opened this spring so that was a bit of good timing.

I was a little apprehensive at first stepping onto the glass and looking down, but after a few minutes it was no problem.  I still could have done without the goof balls who would jump on the glass to feel the whole thing shake!

I learned the names of some of the more prominent glaciers.  In the picture below (from left to right) are the Sunwapta Glacier, Athabasca Peak, AA Glacier, Andromeda Peak, and Andromeda Glacier.  All of this overlooked the Athabasca Glacier that was best viewed from the Icefields Center. 

We were treated to a sundog over the Skywalk.

They described the layer of snow at the top as icing on a cake.  It's hard to believe it is 300 feet thick at the edge.

On the way home we stopped at the Parker Ridge trail.  Just a quick jaunt up the trail (2.5 km with a 275 meter elevation gain) and we had a view of the Saskatchewan Glacier.  It was a lot of effort compounded by poor trail conditions (muddy in places), but the view was fantastic!

This little Pika (6" long) is a member of the bunny family.

As a bonus, we got to see a young Big Horn Sheep.  He was quite far away so he is a bit blurry, but some wildlife along the trail is always a welcome addition.

Finally, we made it to the ridge and were rewarded with breathtaking views of the Saskatchewan glacier.

We could see evidence of an avalanche using my camera's 30X zoom.

I wondered if we were far enough north to see the Aurora Borealis.  I tried to wait for nightfall - you know I'm usually asleep by 9:30 or 10:00.  At 11:18, I finally stepped outside.  I could only make out four points of light.  I'm pretty sure two of them were planets (Saturn and Mars).  It was still too light to make out any constellations, let alone see an aurora!  It has to be disappointing to be a Canadian astronomer in the summer.  I gave up and went to bed.