We stopped here for a picnic lunch.
Drive to the Athabaska Glacier,
June 27, 2006.
Not too much vacation time left. My new job starts in 2 days. But Shirley and I tried to make
the best of this available time and took a drive past Lake Louise and then North towards
Jasper. Our farthest point was about 325km from Calgary, which is the location of the
Athabaska glacier.
Basically, here is a sample of the scenery you can see in a day trip of Calgary.
I'm telling you all, you really should come for a visit.
We stopped here for a picnic lunch.
Everybody stops here for a photo. Any wonder why?
Close but not yet the Athabaska Glacier.
This is the Athabaska Glacier (behind Shirley of course) as it looks today in 2006.
Pretty massive still but receeding rapidly.
People are allowed on the glacier but MUST stay within the marked boundaries. Two years ago a
10 year old boy fell in a crevasse just steps away from this point. By the time they were
able to pull him out he had already died of hypothermia. This happened in the summer time.
You can hear the water flowing through the crevasses. The sound has a low, deep quality to it
which convinces you that crevasses are not to be taken lightly.
The area is full of markers such as this one indicating former terminations of the glacier and
the effects of global warming, and how it is caused by man....
Markers all along the path re-enforces this throughout the visit. The markers also indicate
that the glacier, when first discovered in 1880 something, stretched all the way across the valley
to the bottom edge of the tree line. Interesting. I guess SUV's must have been invented in 1880 something...
(Editorial comment from Ray here).
Outcrop of shale is covered with Glacial striation Stiations are caused by rocks imbedded in ice
on the glacier's bottom. As the glacier moved forward (really, really slowly) the rocks scraped
the bedrock.
A little waterfall we stopped at on the way back. We nearly killed ourselves, crawling down
a steep embankment to get to it. But it was worth it.
Another stop along the way back. Peyto Lake.
We cannot drive by Lake Louise without stopping. It wasvery quiet at the end of the day.
We had dinner at the bar at the hotel. After dinner most of the mass of daytime tourists had left.
Lake Louise is a magical place.
Mount Temple. This shot is dedicated to our friend Kathy Pym who hiked to the top
of this mountain in 1972. As you can probably guess, this is NOT an easy hike.