Thrills and chills on the Icefields Parkway: Part 1

I gripped the passenger door handle with my sweaty hand, heart pounding, and leaned inwards towards Bill, away from the steep drop-off, as we rounded the U-shaped Big Loop on the Icefields Parkway.

“Take a photo,” urged Bill, trying to distract me from imminent peril to focus instead on the Rocky Mountains, with their hanging glaciers, and the deep valleys, a stunning view of which was right outside my window.

Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I tried. But my finger was so sweaty, the phone camera wouldn’t recognize my fingerprint. And besides, looking down the mountain at the winding road we had just traversed made me dizzy. I’d rather stare at the road ahead, as if staring would keep us glued to the pavement rather than slide off the edge into the abyss.

Don’t get me wrong – I love the mountains and I’m not afraid of heights. I’m just afraid of falling off those heights when there’s no guardrail next to a steep drop-off.

We had left Canmore two days before, after a weeklong visit with our daughter Rachel, to explore the Icefields Parkway, which runs 233 kilometres between Lake Louise, in Banff National Park, and Jasper, in Jasper National Park.

We had taken two sample bites of this glorious part of Canada before setting out. On one of her days off (working as a rafting guide for Chinook Rafting), Rachel had driven us to Lake Louise with the intent of hiking the Lake Agnes Teahouse trail. Apparently, everyone in Alberta had the same idea that day because all the parking lots were jam-packed. So, we headed instead for Consolation Lake trail, which offered the same stunning teal blue lake surrounded by mountains and no crowds. On another day, we cycled from Canmore to Banff along the Legacy Trail – 26.8 kilometres each way of Mount Rundle views and ospreys hunting overhead.

Then we left for a five-day foray up the Icefields Parkway.

“What’s the difference between an icefield and a glacier?” I asked. Bill didn’t know the answer and none of the many interpretive panels we read explained it either.

Our first stop was Bow Lake, where we discovered a trail that led to the Bow Glacier Waterfall – the source of the Bow River that flows through much of southern Alberta. We geared up for the 4.6-kilometre (each way) hike: water, hats, sunscreen, bear spray, walking poles, solid footwear, jackets.

What a glorious trail! We hiked past the startlingly teal blue waters of Bow Lake with a few dips into the forest that smelled like Christmas – the balsam firs. Then we followed the icy cold bluey-grey stream across an alluvial plain and upwards beside a steep gorge. On the other side of the narrow, boulder-strewn gorge was another wide valley, with the baby Bow River winding its way through the gravel moraine left behind when the mama glacier retreated. Ahead was the waterfall, marking where the Bow began. We got close enough to feel the spray, carried to us on the wind, then turned back because the sun was sinking behind the peaks.

I decided that mountain-gawking was my new favourite sport. Risks include a sprained neck and driving off the road but it’s a pleasure for the eyes and spirit.

Mountains thrill and terrify me at the same time. The incredible forces that thrust those folds and layers skyward is unfathomable. I know many people feel claustrophobic in the mountains, but that’s not me. I fear falling into their vastness and losing my sense of self and self-esteem, since people are just so insignificant in their presence. We’re fleas on the back of Bigfoot. Prairies are more comfortable to me; mountains are challenging.

I also couldn’t tire of admiring the deep teal bluey-green lakes and rivers. The colours, which indicate water that’s born on a glacier, shift as the sun moves over and ducks behind clouds. Rachel had explained that the colour comes from “rock flour” – rock that’s been ground into fine powder by glaciers, becomes suspended in the meltwater, and reflects sunlight, giving the saturated teal colours.     

The morning we hiked up Parker Ridge, we awoke to see that snow had dusted the mountain tops around our campsite, highlighting all the ridges and crags. We unpacked our long underwear, winter jackets, hats and gloves – never having dreamed we’d wear them at the end of August. But we needed them that day.

A sign at the trailhead warned us that snow was possible from September to June, and we might see unexploded warheads or avalanche projectiles! The trail zigzagged up the ridge, through more Christmas-smelling mossy woods, then meadows sprinkled with stunning wildflowers, and past the last small Engelmann spruce trees. These dwarfed trees are called krummholz, which means ‘crooked wood.’ Some of the rocks at our feet contained fossilized coral.

• 

• 

We decided later that Parker Ridge was our favourite trail, albeit amongst a list of superb candidates. From the top, we gazed over the Saskatchewan Glacier, one of six that comes off the Columbia Icefield. It’s a classic valley glacier – a long tongue of greyish-white ice that’s turning the valley into a U-shape. The milky teal lake at its foot gives birth to the Saskatchewan River.

“It’s a view worthy of the hike, and then some,” said Bill.

Studying the various maps we picked up, I could see that the half dozen icefields that dotted the mountain tops along the Icefields Parkway had tongues of glaciers flowing off them. Was that the difference? An icefield feeds glaciers?

When we got to the Columbia Icefield Centre the next day, we lined up (masks on and six feet apart) to get a coffee in the cafeteria. I asked the young woman controlling the line what the difference was. She admitted she didn’t know, but thought my guess sounded right. None of the info panels around the centre clarified it. However, we did learn about the katabatic winds – dense cold air that’s pushed down the glacier by gravity.

And then we experienced the strong katabatic wind as we hiked on the Toe of the Glacier trail. That icy wind is wicked!

Sadly, the Athabasca Glacier is a shadow of its former self. In 1844, the glacier covered the entire area where the centre is today – at least a kilometre away, across the highway. All along the road and trail are signs marking where the glacier was in which year.

“Over the last three decades the glaciers of the mountain West have been shrinking faster than at any other time in recorded history,” wrote Robert William Sandford in The Columbia Icefield, which I bought in the centre’s gift shop. “If the world continues to warm and all this ‘water in the bank’ disappears, the West, and our entire continent, will be a very different place.”

Bill found it depressing and I had to agree. How could anyone dispute the fact of global warming or climate change when they see those markers? Some glacial retreat may be natural, but I have no doubt that we humans have sped up the process.

On a positive note, Sandford’s book confirmed my supposition that icefields feed the glaciers.

But on another sad note, we saw the road going up the left side of the valley and onto the glacier, now closed to traffic. In July, the Ice Explorer tour bus rolled down the steep embankment, killing three people. They and the two dozen others on that tragic bus experienced exactly what scares me about driving in the mountains.

We climbed back into our gasoline-slurping vehicle and continued up the Icefields Parkway, feeling not only sad but also hypocritical.

Next is Part 2: Glorious, challenging mountains command respect