Cookies and Crayons

From hot springs to ice! Today, we headed out from Jasper down to the Columbia Icefields. Scott had been before several years ago but this was something I’ve been wanting to do since we moved here. They are only open in the summer though so our trip had to wait until now.

Here is Athabasca Glacier. It is the most accessible glacier in the Icefield. Though it appears huge, it is really just a small part of the icefield itself.

We bought our tickets and had a little wait until it was our turn. We had to take a bus out to the Snocoach waiting area where a coach would take us out onto the glacier.

Here is the road onto the glacier itself.

It was pretty cold and the kids were hungry so they were a bit off at this point.

Amazing what a few crackers can do.

As we go closer, they explained the “rules.” They want you to stay in the marked area. They check that area daily for crevasses and know that it is safe for walking but anywhere outside of the marked area can be dangerous. People have died here so better to be safe! We would be given about 15 minutes to walk around on the glacier once we arrived. We were really lucky that all of these coaches left right after we got there so we had the entire area for just our bus group.

It was COLD! We knew it would be cold but this was really cold!!

Another guy on our bus offered to take our picture so we managed to get one with the whole family.

After lunch, we headed down to a different viewing area to see the toe of the glacier. It was interesting to see how much it had receded since Scott was here last time.

Poor Connie missed out on most of this action.

We made the long drive back to Jasper and called it a day.