Icefields Parkway

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Although we had originally planned to stay one more night in Jasper, we woke up this morning with itchy feet. We got a refund on our campground fees, and took off down the Columbia Icefields Parkway, which runs between Jasper and Banff. This highway is designed to be a scenic drive, not a transportation corridor. Large commercial vehicles are forbidden, and you must have a park pass to drive on this highway. The scenery all along the way is just one spectacular view after another, and there are abundant stopping places, ranging from pull-outs, through viewpoints, picnic grounds, all the way to the Icefields Centre, across the road from the Athabasca Glacier, about halfway along the route.

We took the drive slow and easy, stopping frequently. Although the total distance of this drive is only 230 km, we must have taken 7-8 hours to do the drive, including a long stop at the Icefields Centre to eat lunch, and then take the snocoach ride right out onto the glacier.

Although I’ve visited the Athabasca Glacier before, I’ve never taken this trip, always deeming it too expensive to consider before. At $31.95 per person it still seemed expensive, but I’m learning it’s easier to justify expenses like this when one is of “a certain age,” on the grounds, I suppose, that you may never get the chance to do it again. Certainly when I was here at 28, and again at 38, that thought never crossed my mind! However, once we’d had the experience of this trip, we felt it was well worth the money spent. First a normal intercity coach takes you down to the glacier from the Centre, and then you board a snocoach. We learned these are really unique vehicles, made exclusively for this ride; there are only 30-some in existence, and all but one of them are here. They cost $1M each, and the tires alone are worth $5K each! They have six-wheel drive, and when you get into the vehicle and see where they are about to take you, you realize why. When you board, you are actually on higher ground than the glacier itself, on one of the lateral moraines, in fact. The initial descent onto the glacier is via a gravel road with a 32% grade. Yes, you read that right! Going down this grade feels like going down a roller coaster - when we realized where we were going, we wished we hadn’t eaten lunch first! I kept telling myself that thousands of people do this every year. Then an imagination over-fed with disaster flicks would kick in and remind me of how many things could go wrong, and I would see the headlines flashing before me: “Fifty tourists killed in freak snocoach accident on Athabasca Glacier. Coach company president expresses regret and pledges full investigation. Further snocoach excursions suspended pending inquest results.”

Of course, you wouldn’t be reading this if anything untoward had actually happened to us! The snocoaches move very slowly, and got us down the steep hill OK, to our great relief. Then we ran through a small lake, created by the coach company deliberately to wash the tires clean of gravel before they go up on the glacier itself. They follow a plowed road of slushy ice which winds through the normal glacier material, full of crevasses, streams of melt water, and holes of various types, right beside the vehicle. We were hoping that whoever created and maintained that road knew exactly what they were doing! The driver maintains a running commentary during the whole trip, providing an abundance of facts and figures about the glacier, many of which I hadn’t heard before. There is an ever-present consciousness that you are in a very unique place in that moment. It was a truly awesome experience, in the classical sense of that word - inspiring awe. At the end of the line is a large sort of parking area. There are usually 4-5 snocoaches parked there at once, and you have 15 minutes to debark and wander about within that area if you wish. You are invited to drink the water running in a small stream at the edge of this area - it is the cleanest water in the world, melted from snow that fell 150 years ago. The driver told us it was reputed to add 10 years to your life. Many people tasted it, including us, and a few took bottles of it away with them. They did say that children under 10 should not drink it - presumably because they would cease to exist!

This whole experience took 80 minutes, from the time we boarded the coach until we returned to the Icefield Centre, and we both were extremely glad we had done it.

Lake Louise, July 19-20

When we finally arrived at Lake Louise, where we hoped to camp, it was after 6 pm, and we were unable to get a campsite. Instead they said if we drove another 15 km along the Bow Valley Parkway towards Banff, we would surely get a place at Protection Mountain; and that is what we did. This is an unattended campground, where you put your money in an envelope and drop it into a locked receptacle. And as we were doing so, we were swamped by tons of mosquitoes. So once we got to our site, we pretty much stayed inside the camper being thankful for our screens. There wasn’t much to look at - this campground is located in a fairly dense grove of lodgepole pines, and light is sparse. There are flush toilets, but no other amenities. We had a simple supper and went to bed early, intending to get up early and see if we could get a spot at Lake Louise campground in the morning.

We did get up early, and headed straight for the Lake Louse campground, arriving there around 9:00 or 9:30. Already there was a lineup of about 8-10 cars waiting for campsites, but we got one without any difficulty. This is a much more pleasant location, very near the tiny village of Lake Louse, and about 4 km from the Chateau and lake itself. The forest is much less dense, there is a river running at the edge of the campground, which we can hear burbling quite clearly from our campsite. It is also quite close to the train tracks, so we hear trains passing from time to time, a sound we both enjoy.

We actually stayed in this campground for three nights in 1997, when we were driving from Ottawa to relocate in Vancouver, so it felt a bit like coming home to return here. One change since we were last here is the addition of a 5-foot electric fence all the way around the campground. This is to discourage the local grizzlies, who travel between feeding areas using a corridor very near the campground, from entering it. It doesn’t stop them entirely, but it does deter them quite a bit. I must say, I don’t think we realized we were tenting in grizzly country when we were last here! We’ll be sleeping with the pop top down tonight, just in case. One drawback to camping in the VW is that you cook and store food inside, and that does tend to make it attractive to animals. We have never (knowingly) had an animal try to get inside, but the pop top would be a vulnerable entry point - and we just spent a fortune replacing the pop top, aside from considerations of our personal safety. We just have to remember not to stand up straight when we get out of bed in the morning!

After registering, we availed ourselves of the shower facilities, and then went up to Chateau Lake Louise. After a quick look at the lake, we repaired to one of the lower-class restaurants, where we had promised ourselves one luxury meal. Kath had the best hamburger she had ever tasted (with salady), and Roberta had a pork sirloin sandwich, with fries. We shared lots of tastes from each other’s plates, but couldn’t manage to finish everything. This was a meal well worth the indulgence of the premium price - not only for the food, but for the view of Lake Louse and the glacier.

After lunch, we took a walk to the end of the lake - Roberta made it the whole way while Kath did a bit more than half. This beauty of this place is breathtaking - and it is simply crawling with tourists from all over the world. Somehow it still manages to charm, though.

After such an enormous lunch, we had a simple sandwich supper in camp, took in the interpretive program, and spent a quiet evening going through all the pictures we took the last two days, and planning how to use them in the blog. I think we’ll place some of them in the photo archive - there are too many to include without overwhelming this narrative.

Thursday, we head for Bragg Creek, where we plan to join the surprise 30th birthday celebration for Kath’s daughter Rebecca, who hopefully had no idea we are even in her neck of the woods! Kath will be up late Wednesday night finishing the sweater she is making for Rebecca’s birthday present!

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Photos

Athabasca Falls
One of our first stops along the Icefields Parkway.

Jacko the Raven
This fellow is a frequenter of this hostel, apparently.

Athabasca Glacier
Up close and personal

Roberta encounters a snocoach
Notice her expression of surprise....

The incomparable Lake Louise
Words are not enough.