On Day 4 we headed out for the huge Columbia icefield and along the way saw some animals and small glaciers.
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Then we arrived at our 'Adventure'; a trip out on the Athabasca Glacier.
| Canadians explain the difference between 'icefields' and 'glaciers' like this. Imagine holding a glob of ice cream in your hand and squeezing until the ice cream oozes out between your fingers. The big glob is an icefield and the streams between your fingers are glaciers. The Columbia icefield feeds eight major glaciers, the most famous being the Athabasca Glacier (click the links for more information). | |
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| The edge of the Columbia icefield is visible at the top with the Athabasca Glacier oozing out below it. | We rode from here down to the tracks below; a 32% incline. The maximimun incline on the Canadian railroad is 2%! |
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| Who was the coldest??? | ||
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| This is what we rode to get to the glacier. Blue pylons marked holes in the glacier and the outlined the safe area to walk. Recently, two different groups of unguided hikers on this glacier fell into crevices and died so we obeyed our guides. | ||
| Page 1 | Interested in the last leg? Visit Jasper and ride the train to Vancouver. | Page 3 |
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