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Thursday, 8/8/2002 - Day 5
Today was a gorgeous day (even if the temperature did go up to 78) - for most of the day there wasn't a cloud in the sky and it was cool and breezy. We went to the Columbia Icefield today - took the glacier tour on the SnoCoach (specially built bus designed for this particular glacier), walked on the ice, took drinks from the runoff - it was really good. We also visited Athabasca Falls - something we hadn't done since the first trip back in 99. Gorgeous place - I had fun climbing around the rocks on the riverbank (not by the falls - the rocks I was on were safe) and I watched some cool Australian types building structures with them. Dinner was some half-decent pizza and poutine. I also finished reading Stephen Ambrose's D-Day...so it's time for a new book.
Random observations:
- Glacier water is COLD.
- It always amazed me that the Columbia Icefield (specifically the part of it on top of Mount Snow-Dome) is a triple continental divide - in other words, water from it ends up in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans. They call Snow-Dome the hydrographic apex of the entire continent. Only one other place in the world is like that - someplace in Siberia.
- In the 40s, the US Army did winter training on one of the 5 other glaciers that come off the Icefield, about a 20 minute drive from the one I was walking on. A Jeep fell into a crevasse and had to be abandoned. Over the years, the glacier just enveloped it - the guides said they expect it to surface at the toe of the glacier next summer when it melts out. How cool is that? A perfectly preserved Jeep, spit out by the glacier.
- There were signs up at Athabasca Falls - apparently 2 months ago some idiot climbed over the rail at one of the viewpoints, slipped on the rocks, and fell into the falls. Nobody has since seen any trace of him at all. Scary. (no, those weren't the rocks I was on - I'm not that stupid)
- Over dinner, we found The Shawshank Redemption playing on the French channel. Somehow it just didn't seem...right. But it was funny.