Snow Hiking at its Best - Wilcox Pass, Columbia Icefields

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We saw bighorn sheep! A whole herd of them, in fact, blocking the path on our hike today. They were pretty unconcerned about me taking their photo - the ram was just sitting there serenely, chewing some grass and looking over the ledge at the incredible view.

When we got up this morning, Rufous was frozen by the glacier - literally enclosed in an ice casing. We had to put the heater on for about 15 minutes before we could even turn on the wipers. Then we set off for our hike - Wilcox Pass to Tangle Creek - which is where we saw our bighorn sheep :-). The view was breathtaking up there - high up amongst the snowy mountaintops, glaciers all around. We spent three quarters of the the seven hour hike not knowing where the hell we were, since the snow had completely covered most of the trail. Since we had nothing else to go off, we followed a pair of random footprints across the snowfield for several hours, just hoping that this crazy person had known where they were going. Following along beside their footprints for almost the whole way were what appeared to be cougar prints, so we were half expecting to have come all this way only to find their half-devoured carcass at the end. But, many, many hours later, after trudging through acres of snow, we finally found the trail and made it back. We had great fun trying to walk on the frozen ponds, but of course most of them weren't frozen enough so they just crack and you fall into an icy puddle.

After our insane hike, we hitchhiked back to our car and went for a 'walk' (a.k.a. haphazard slide) on the Athabasca glacier, which was surprisingly dangerous, especially in my shoes-with-no-grip. Almost killed myself ;-). We are staying at the hostel again tonight - it seems ridiculously hot in here after being on the ice all day.

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Photos

Serene Mr Bighorn
Meditating on his mountaintop

Hiking Through Wilcox Pass
Forging our way through acres of blinding white snow

Me Skipping Down the Mountain
Not another soul to be seen for miles

Another Bighorn
Erm, hope they don't bite...

Alpine Heaven
Me at the edge of the Pass

Quin Walks on Water
Before falling through the ice into a freezing puddle

Quin Leading the Way
Erm, we seem to have lost the path

The Mighty Athabasca Glacier
Spilling off the Columbia Icefield like a giant ivory tongue

Deceptively Slippery Athabasca Glacier
Like trying to balance on a sloped icecube