Glorious, challenging mountains command respect: Part 2

I’m fond of geographical markers, and we’ve stopped on our travels to marvel at several continental divide markers, 49^th and 50^th parallel signs, and the geographic centre of Canada. But Snow Dome mountain, which overlooks the Athabasca Glacier, gave me a first: it’s the apex of a triple continental divide.

From the marvellous Snow Dome, looking like it’s wearing a white po’boy cap, ice and water flow down via glaciers from the Columbia Icefield towards three oceans. (Stay with me here – it’s a bit confusing because the Athabasca Glacier doesn’t melt directly into the Athabasca River, as one would logically think.)

1. The Columbia Glacier gives birth to the Athabasca River, which flows north, draining much of northern Alberta to Lake Athabasca and on to feed the Mackenzie River, journeying north to the Arctic Ocean.
2. The Saskatchewan Glacier logically drips into the North Saskatchewan River, which then meanders generally eastward 2,000 kilometres to Hudson Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.
3. “Glacial drainage from the ice field’s northwestern rim” (I couldn’t determine which glacier) flows generally westward into the Columbia River that eventually empties into the Pacific Ocean.

On our trip up the Icefields Parkway (see Part 1), I looked upon those mountains and glaciers respectfully. Imagine being responsible for feeding those rivers that cross most of Canada and supply so much of our water. It underlined our responsibility for doing our part to ensure these masses of ice and snow continue to feed clean rivers.

I felt a pull to follow all those rivers, just to see what they saw on their way to the salty brine. Maybe that’s what explorer David Thompson felt as he followed the Athabasca River in 1810 to 1811, “establishing the first practical fur trade route through the Rockies,” according to a historical marker that also explained why the watercourse is a Canadian Heritage River.  

I doubt, however, that Thompson shared my clammy-handed fear of driving near steep drop-offs. Just north of the Columbia Icefield, we passed by the glass-floored, glass-railed Glacier Skywalk – a curved balcony hanging from a cliff, 280 metres (918 feet) above the Sunwapta Valley. My entire body trembled just driving by it. Tickets, sold at the Columbia Icefield Centre, were $44 each for adults. It would have been a complete waste for me, but we had seen busloads of people leaving the centre to brave the glass balcony.   

The parkway, which roughly parallels the continental divide along the Rocky Mountain peaks, began in 1931 as a make-work project of the federal government for unemployed men during the Depression. About 600 men constructed the single-lane gravel track mostly by hand; each team had only one tractor and some horses. After the parkway’s completion in 1940, curious visitors trickled in, but tourism really took off in the 1950s when less-expensive cars became more readily available.

Our initial plan had been to drive a loop: north up the Icefields Parkway to Jasper, then east to Edmonton (to see where I was born), south to Calgary and west back to Canmore to our daughter Rachel’s place. But exploring the trails, waterfalls, and glaciers, and searching for shy wildlife enthralled us so much that we ditched Edmonton; we decided to take our time slowly along the parkway so we could stop at all the places that called to us.

Waterfalls mark the northern section of the parkway. Tangle Falls was a pretty, multi-tiered bridal veil right by the highway. Sunwapta Falls are gorge-ous, literally, as they fall into a deep limestone gorge. Boulders stuck mid-waterfall looked like they’d break and fall any time under the powerful water.

The Goats ‘n’ Glaciers viewpoint sounded intriguing, so we stopped to look out over the wide but shallow Sunwapta River, with a line of mountains dripping with glaciers beyond. Beautiful. But there were no mountain goats – at least, not that I could see.

Yellow warning signs promised many wildlife sightings: bighorn sheep, bears, deer, elk, mountain goats. But alas, my curse seemed to be in full force, despite scanning rocky ledges for hours.

We started to see swathes of maroon-tinted trees on the mountain sides. Not a sign of fall, but rather the mountain pine beetle that is devastating forests, leaving fire hazards behind. Just like with the receding glaciers, it’s a sad sign.

Avalanche zone warning signs come and go regularly along the parkway, and rocks on the shoulders marked where slides are a hazard. What if one hit us as we drove by?

I continued to feel tremors of fear course down my legs and into my toes on the steep curves and drop-offs. Deep breaths.

“You’re getting worse as you get older,” Bill said. He’s right. Older and wiser. I know what can happen. But I try to not let my fear stop me from doing what I want to do.

My anticipation of danger was vindicated at Athabasca Falls where the signs were explicit about what could happen if you went beyond the barriers.

“Beauty and danger go hand in hand near Athabasca Falls,” said one sign as we walked in to where the river plunged through another stunning gorge. Mist hung in curtains, with a rainbow that tentatively glimmered. Moss and lichen clung to forest branches and the stone walls that lined the gorge. But the danger was clear too. The ground practically rumbled beneath our feet from the powerful water as it wears the rock lip back a few millimetres per year.

“Athabasca Falls Kills,” said an information panel, explaining how people climb out to get a photo, slip and die – if not from the rocks then from hypothermia in the frigid waters that have just come off the glacier. “Every couple of years, someone dies at Athabasca Falls. Park staff search for and rescue people who fall into the canyon. Usually only the bodies are recovered for the grieving families.”   

Despite these warnings, crazy people still climbed beyond the barriers there and at other waterfalls. We even saw a father encouraging his teenage daughter to pose for a photo beyond the fence. What are they thinking?

We studied the rocks where the roiling waters worked with gravel and stones to form potholes, just like in Potholes Provincial Park that we visited earlier in Northern Ontario. We followed a path down through a former water course, steep layered rock walls on each side of us, to more viewing platforms.

“I wonder what kind of rock that is,” I mused.

“Sedimentary, my dear Watson,” Bill quipped. He makes me laugh.

We finally reached the end of the Icefields Parkway in Jasper, where masks were mandatory in all public spaces – indoors and outdoors. “Masks Required” was stencilled on the sidewalks at street corners. Many stores sold bear spray, another reminder to take the mountains and all that live within them seriously.  

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Dozens of trailheads along the Icefields Parkway entice travellers to explore off the highway, and Jasper has even more. We truly thought we’d included plenty of time, but really it was just enough for a sampling. You could spend a month or more if you wanted to tackle more.

Gorgeous Maligne (pronounced Muh-LEEN) Canyon is a Jasper highlight. The 2.2-kilometre trail follows the narrow gorge downhill, with four bridges crisscrossing the plunging water and two more further on. Many other streams contribute their waters via small waterfalls. The mosses are outstanding and I paused to see how many I could identify (with the help of an info panel). Yellowy-green clumps of Hygrohypnum hugged the canyon walls, dark Grimmia turned rocks into mounds, and feather mosses grew like tiny ferns in the forest.  

Later, we stood on the prominent bedrock hill that’s the high point of the Old Fort Point Loop trail, surveying the town of Jasper across the Athabasca River with the naked primal peaks behind it. It hit me that we’ve travelled more in Europe than in western Canada, enough to know that Italians or Greeks or Spaniards would have built monasteries or entire towns on the tops of those mountains. With a smaller landmass, more people and a longer history that required defences from invading forces, European settlement has often spread to the mountain tops, whereas we still have the luxury and space to settle in the valley bottoms.

We had talked by phone with our son Tom as we hiked the Old Fort trail and (in a fit of irony, given his teenage years) he went down a safety checklist to make sure we were prepared for mountain hiking. “Do you have your bear spray?” he asked.

“Uh, no. We forgot it,” I admitted. We had carried it on every other hike but forgot it just this once; he duly chastised us.

At the end of our hike, just as we approached our van, a cyclist called out that a bear was plodding down a trail right near where we had been. We watched as the black bear emerged, ambled across the road and headed for the Athabasca River nearby. Its glossy coat rippled with each step. My heart pounded as we followed it and Bill’s hands shook as he took photos and videos. I couldn’t believe Tom had been right! And I was finally getting my wish to see a bear close up, yet at a safe distance.

We gazed intently while the creature waded across a shallow stretch of the Athabasca River to a gravel bed, then swam across the fast-moving stretch and finally clambered up the bank on the far side. Our cyclist companion called Parks Canada since the bear appeared to be going towards town. But as we drove back to town ourselves, we saw the bear disappear into the woods headed the other way.

The UNESCO Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site includes the Banff, Jasper, Kootenay and Yoho national parks as well as three provincial parks, including Mount Robson Provincial Park in B.C. Since we were in the neighbourhood, we dropped in to see 3,954-metre-high Mount Robson, the highest point in the Canadian Rockies. Clouds obscured the peak but we had glimpses of its majestic face.

That same day, we drove back to Jasper and then south along the Icefields Parkway back to Canmore, admiring the mountains and glaciers from the reverse point of view. Many looked different going the other way. And so did some of those scary drop-offs.

Bill pointed out a silver lining to my fear.

“With your raised pulse, your FitBit will think you’re exercising hard!”

Read Thrills and chills on the Icefields Parkway: Part 1