After our wonderful trip to the Jasper National Park and a little free time that afternoon, which many spent in the very charming village of Jasper, we set off early in a coach the next morning for the long day trip to Lake Louise on our Iceland Parklands Tour. This would have to be the most magical fairyland of snow-capped mountains and glaciers I have ever seen, even more awe-inspiring than Lucerne in Switzerland and the mountains around Berchtesgaden at the German-Austrian border, and they are magnificent enough!
And we could not believe our luck that we had the same friendly and very competent Aussie driver as the day before, who told us many stories about the region.
First he took us to the picturesque Athabasca Falls, and then, the magnificent Athabasca Glacier. The sight of this massive glacier poised there above us was simple breath-taking! When we arrived, dark clouds loomed over us, but during the couple of hours we spent there, the sun eventually came out and then all the snow and ice simply sparkled.
The ultimate treat of this day was to be taken up to board the ‘Ice Explorer’ and driven up onto the glacier. This specially designed, highly visible, very tough vehicle is on many massive wheels almost as tall as a person. We had to climb up a ladder to get into it. Originally they used to have tractor treads to get traction on the sloping ice, but this was deemed too damaging to the already vulnerable glacier.
Your heart was a little in your mouth on the journey up to and over the glacier, but the driver of our Ice Explorer was a hoot of a young man who kept teasing us, which took our mind off the steep slopes that we traversed both up and down. We soon passed the tree line, but still saw some lovely alpine flowers.
When on the glacier we saw some blue ice, which was ice that had been more compressed, but mostly the ice was white, with specks of rocks in it. When we stepped out of the vehicle for about ten minutes to take photos, in a spot where there were already a couple of other Ice Explorers, we were surrounded by ropes and signs limiting where we could walk. This spot had been deemed safe by glaciologists, but every year the glacier is carefully checked to ensure the safety of those who visit it. You had to tread very carefully, because of course it was quite slippery in parts. It was best to stand on the softer ice.
Interestingly , the temperature was only about 7 degrees celsius with no wind, so despite all the layers in which all of us were rugged up, to be truthful that day it was no colder than Melbourne in winter. (We sometimes get cold winds blowing our way from Antarctica.) I was much colder in Tallinn in Estonia, where freezing winds from the Arctic blew so hard on us as we explored the old city.
When you looked up, majestic peaks with more glaciers surrounded us as far as the eye could see. It was a sight I shall never forget!
It was hard to do justice to this beautiful place with my limited camera. I hope my photos of the waterfall and the glacier inspire you to visit there too!
The Athabasca Falls:
On the way to the glacier:
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| Our first glimpse of the glacier. The little black 'dots' in the middle of the ice were some Ice Explorers! |
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| One of the nearby mountains. |
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| One of the Ice Explorers. Ours was bright green. |
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| On the lower left is another glacier above the glacier on which we were standing. This is taken with a zoom lens. |
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| We saw small bits of even bluer ice than this. |
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| Trading carefully on the ice. |
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| This photo was taken without a zoom lens. |
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| What the surface of the ice was like after so many people had trampled on it. |
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| As we drove back down, I saw this pyramidal peak in the distance just glowing when the sunlight hit it. It looked awesome. |
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| A view of the glacier from back down at the tourist centre. |
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| The next glacier along, just before 'our' glacier as you drove in the direction we travelled, seen from the tourist centre. |
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