Day 4- Columbia Icefield and Athabasca Glacier

Day 4 in Alberta

Today we drove to the Columbia Icefields and the Athabasca Glacier via the Icefields Parkway. For the most part, the Parkway is an easy drive with views of peaks and glaciers along the way. It was a little cloudy but we were able to see Mount Hector, at 11,100 feet, spectacular. It took us about 2 ½ hours to actually reach the Icefields with stops along the way for picture taking, took more time for this on the way home. By the way we saw another bear today eating berries on the side of the road.
A little history and facts about the Icefields and Glaciers: The Athabasca Glacier and the Columbia Icefield once formed part of an enormous ice sheet that ground and carved the landforms that you see today throughout the Rocky Mountains. An alpine icefield is formed when snow that falls on high mountain peaks and plateaus accumulates year after year with little summer melt. When the snow attains a depth of about 30 meters (100 ft.), the bottom layers become pressurized into ice. More snow falls on top and the depth of ice increases, eventually overflowing into the surrounding valleys and starts flowing downhill- a glacier is born! We took the snowcoach out to the headwall of the Athabasca Glacier and walked around on it. The part we were standing on was as thick as the Eiffel Tower is tall (ranges from 270ft to 1000ft in depth and 3.75 miles in length).


Our next stop was the Parker Ridge Trail head where we hiked up to the Parker Ridge Pass Crest (7400 ft ridge crest) where we were able to see the Saskatchewan Glacier as well as the summits backing the Athabasca Glacier. It was a little cold and windy up there and started snowing but the views were still spectacular.


We then ventured onward to Peyto Lake. After a short hike to the viewing platform we could see the turquoise expanse of Peyto Lake and its ring of craggy grey summits. To the north we could see a beautiful U-shaped valley of the Mistaya River.

We then drove to Bow Lake with the intent on hiking to Bow Glacier Falls, however, it was getting late in the day and we spotted this really beautiful lodge further down the trail. The lodge is the Historic Num-Ti-Jah Lodge, what a find. We decided to go in the lodge and ended up staying for dinner. What a treat! The food, the service, and the atmosphere were outstanding. This one for sure will be rated high in our travel book.