Athabasca Glacier Travel - Addendum to Changes of Time Part 2

While trying to keep my previous post short and manageable I left out the bit on glacier travel on the Athabasca Glacier. Charles Gramlich commented: "I've never seen a glacier up close, of course." It was time to confront my fears.

[1-1962]


My mother, a grade school teacher, was keen on going on a vehicle made to travel over glaciers so she could get a good view of what the terrain looked like. I was doubtful, only going because she said it would be a good education for me and that it was safe. My observant eyes took in the neatly packed emergency equipment in the rear of the vehicle: first aid kit, folded blankets, numerous rope bundles, ice picks, hammers, boots with nails on the bottom, and walkie talkies.

[2-1962] Once up on the glacier we went past deep slits in the ice and stopped near a larger crevasse so our group could get out and look at the "blue ice". My mother was fascinated at the sight while I stayed inside the vehicle where I felt relatively safe. My imagination was running rampant over the horrors of watching some idiot who might fall into a crevasse (some are 150-365 metres deep to the bedrock). I had asked one of the guides if anyone had fallen in and he said not while he had worked there, but there had been "accidents" when the travel service first began. I still recall the "look" my mother had given me...I had been chastised before about making queries on subjects that might frighten other people. My brothers were perfectionists in that skill, they did it to me all the time.

When I took the glacier trip the top just looked icy and snow covered in places. My footwear (saddleshoes) did not handle the slippery conditions well which is another reason I stayed in the vehicle. We had to come back early from the excursion due to rumbling in the ice pack caused by the ice splitting some distance away. My mother had not seemed to notice how worried the guides looked, but I had. We went back over a different route than coming onto the glacier, as a great fissure had appeared.

[3] The dirty stuff on top is partially the pollution from over time. These cracks are called "millwells", a dangerous feature of the glacier. Snow accumulates on crevasses and on warm days the meltwater trickls to the bottom and down through the glacier to the toe. A heavier snowfall will cover these millwills and falling into frigid millwells can result in hypothermia very quickly and fatalities have occurred. Emergency teams are sometimes called upon to rescue unwary hikers and climbers.

Below this photo shows the vast improvement over the glacier vehicle I rode in during the early 60s.

[4] These are the specialized Brewster Snow Coaches, two other models which are used in Antarctica. The Brewsters began offering tours of the glacier back in the 1880s, conducting the first excursions with pack horses. When I rented horses in Banff, I always went to the Brewster outfit as they had the best horses and knew how to care for them.

[5] The Parks Canada Service and Brewster International have collaborated in a joint effort to bring visitors an experience of a 5 km round trip on solid 400 year old ice up to 1200 feet thick. At a prepared location on the ice pack the visitors are allowed out of the buses to walk around and experience the area. For more information on the Columbia Icefields for your ultimate experience go to Brewster.ca.

There you are, Charles, a trip onto a huge glacier just waiting for you.

Research: Brewster.ca, Parks Canada
Photo Credit: [1][2] w reed,[3]-storm light,[4]-Plant Adventure, [5]-fishfix.

Changes of Time Part 2

[Columbia Icefield taken from Icefield Information Centre on other side of Highway 93 in 2007 by Warren Long CC=flickr]

The Athabasca Glacier in this photo is a good distance from the main highway.

Dawn Walton wrote an article in The Globe and Mail, October 12, 2007 about the Icefields: “Ten tiny “the glacier was here” plaques mark the glacier's retreat. The first, dated 1843, sits in the parking lot at the Icefield Information Centre on the other side of Highway 93. The most recent, dated 1992, stands 200 metres from the toe.”

[Columbia Icefields sign for 1992, photo taken 2007 by Maggie T CC=nc-nd-flickr]

Three months later she took a friend up to the Columbia Icefields and to her shock she found the toe of the Athabasca Glacier had retreated 10 to 20 metres since her previous visit.



[Columbia Icefield market 1982 when photo was taken in 2007 by Maggie T CC=nc-nd-flickr]

Wikipedia states: "The Columbia Icefield is an icefield located in the Canadian Rockies, astride the Continental Divide of North America. The icefield lies partly in the northwestern tip of Banff and the southern end of Jasper National Park. It is about 325 km² in area, 100 to 365 metres (328' to 1,197') in depth and receives up to seven metres (23 feet) of snowfall per year. The icefield feeds eight major glaciers, including: Athabasca Glacier, Castleguard Glacier, Columbia Glacier, Dome Glacier, Stutfield Glacier and Saskatchewan Glacier. Snow Dome is a mountain located on the Continental Divide in the Columbia Icefield of Japser National Park, Water from the The Dome Glacier flows to the north-east, the Stutfield Glacier to the north-west, the Columbia Glacier to the west and Athabasca Glacier flows to the east of the mountain.

The Athabasca Glacier is one of the six principal toes of the Columbia Icefield, located in the Canadian Rockies. Due to the warming climate, the glacier has receded more than 1.5 km in the past 125 years and lost over half of its volume. It currently recedes at a rate of 2-3 metres per year. The glacier moves down from the icefield at a rate of several centimetres per day. Due to its close proximity to the Icefields Parkway, between the Alberta towns of Banff and Jasper, and rather easy accessibility, it is the most visited glacier in North America. The leading edge of the glacier is within easy walking distance; however, travel onto the glacier is not recommended unless properly equipped. Hidden crevasses have led to the deaths of unprepared tourists."

The following photograph shows the type of all-terrain vehicle I rode in to go onto the glacier to accompany my mother in 1960.


[Columbia Icefield motorized all-terrain carriers used 1940 t0 1961 by Warren Long CC=flickr]

And forty odd years later an improved model is used to train upon the glacier.


[Columbia Icefield current all-terrain vehicle by Warren Long CC=flickr]




[Banff Gondola - el kay photography CC=nc-nd-flickr]

Near the Town of Banff are the Gondolas on the east side of Sulphur Mountain which take visitors to the top to the Tea House for a panoramic view of the surrounding valleys and mountains. Sulpher Mountain was named in 1916 for the series of hot sulphur springs: lower, middle and upper.


[Gondola used in 1960s by Melete CC=nc-sa-flickr]

When I first rode the gondolas, these were the original models. They would swing when lifting out of the lower terminal and settle after less than a minute. They sat four people. If I went with any of my three older brothers, they took delight in frightening me by making it swing longer. This behaviour stopped quite rapidly after I got sick on one of them.

Over time, as long as the gondola didn't swing too much, I was able to enjoy future trips up and down Sulpher Mountain.


Research: Wikipedia, globeandmail.ca

The Changes of Time

When I last searched for photos to place with my future posts, I came across this one of Highway 93 going through Sinclair Canyon near Radium Hot Springs in British Columbia.

There appears to be nothing wrong with this photo; unless you remember seeing it in the mid-1950s. The gap between the red rock walls was not visible until you were much closer. On the western side of the canyon, the space for the road was wider.

Every summer, until I was in my mid-teens, my family took trips to the Rockies, and that included a visit to Radium Hot Springs. The highway I recall was narrow; to say there was one and a half lanes would be generous. There appeared to be no definite space between the two rock walls except for the road inside and the sound of rushing water below. Vehicles would pass each other slowly. Any one of my brothers liked to lean out the back window to touch the rock as we went past; often knuckles were skinned accompanied with yelps and followed by admonishment by our mother.

Some summers my father had to navigate construction crews at Sinclair Canyon. There were flagmen with walkie-talkies who would indicate whether the vehicles stopped or were allowed to move one direction, then in the other direction when the road had been cleared of rocks from blasting. The federal government had decided to widen the highway within the canyon after learning of reports that cars had gone off the road there.

This wasn't surprising, considering the first guard rails were post beams with planks of wood nailed on; followed by beams with large cable wire attached. A few places had low stone and cement walls at the edge of the highway where, if you were sitting in the passenger side closest to the edge you could look way, way down. For anyone with a fear of heights, well...you didn't look.

Initially, a drive through Sinclair Canyon was going into a narrow, darkened space like a tunnel that curled around the natural formation of the rock where the Radium Creek had worn away the stone. Driving was slow due to the twists and turns, and once out on the other side there was the Radium Hot Springs pool and the town beyond.

For history buffs, Sinclair Canyon is named after James Sinclair who came over Whiteman Pass leading a cavalcade of Red River settlers en route to Walla Walla, Washington in the mid-1840s.

By the early 1900s, local businessmen were lobbying for a road linking Windermere to Banff. Eventually the road was completed by the federal government in exchange for title to a strip of land on either side of the route. In 1920, this land was set aside as Kootenay National Park.

Kootenay is the only national park that represents the Rocky Mountain Trench in the Western Ranges of the Rocky Mountains. The trench, visible from space as a long linear valley stretching from the U.S. border to the B.C./Yukon border, is a major break in the earth's crust.

The elevation ranges from 900m to 3,400m, each range characterized by flora and fauna typical of the western Rocky Mountains. The south-western corner of the park contains the only example of dry Douglas fir/ponderosa pine/wheatgrass vegetation in Canada's national parks. This semi-arid area, where prickly pear cactus also grows, provides important winter range for wildlife, especially Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep. Other species include: grizzly and black bear, wolf, coyote, cougar, lynx, wolverine, marten, marmot, white-tailed and mule
deer, elk [photo], moose, mountain goat and Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep. The mountain goat is the park's wildlife symbol.


Photo credit for Sinclair Canyon: Nancy Meier
Photo credit for elk: chris & lara pawluk CC=nc-flickr.