Day 17

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Day 17

It is rather strange really, we did such a lot today and saw things the likes of which I have never seen before yet I did not end up with as many photo’s as usual. Too busy I guess! We back tracked from Golden to Banff and then North once again to the Columbia Ice Field. This is a gigantic plateau covered by about 1000 feet of compressed snow that has turned into glacial ice. The transport to get up there was these monster buses, which at a little over a million bucks each are not thick on the ground, in fact there are only 23 worldwide, 22 here and one in Antarctica that is owned by the US government. It did not feel as cold as I had expected but as Dale pointed out four thick layers provides plenty of insulation and as you Raro guys know I am pretty efficient at insulation which is why I don’t own a pussy dive suit. There were blue cones indicating the safe perimeter, you will note that i am bravely well beyond this point!The guide was really informative and we came back feeling we had learnt a lot of new and interesting material. Heading still north and getting colder as the latitude unwinds (near zero a couple of times) not that I noticed in my armchair with armrests and heated back and sit upon cushions we got to Athabasca Falls. Here some millennia ago the Athabasca river changed course and there now remains braided in with the existing water course the older and now dry original channel complete with potholes and weirdly eroded rock sculpture. We also found an Inukshuk which was rather neat and I am certain was not actually made by Hans. We are overnighting tonight in Jasper after a nice feed of Bison, we did not eat the whole beast but it was so nice I reckon we might have given it a shot. Both the number of trains we are seeing and the size of these trains is a constant source of amazement to me, trains are certainly an integral part of the Canadian experience.

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