Glacier Walk / Sky Bridge or Wow! That’s a long Way Down
I can almost admit the Princess was right on something. OK, OK, she was right the Glacier Adventure was way more cool (pun intended) than I would have ever thought. There is this ice mass named the Columbia Ice Field. It’s about 1000-foot-thick cap of ice over more than 125 square miles. This is a serious chunk of ice-the largest block of ice in the Canadian Rockies and a National Heritage Site. This is her take on the adventure.
The most visual parts of the Ice Field Parkway in Jasper National Park are massive glaciers pouring over the tops of mountains, white against a backdrop of grey/pink rocky mountain peaks. The Athabasca Glacier comes off the Columbia Ice Field into the valley between Banff and Jasper on Highway 1. You can walk (and it is deceptively far!) from the road to the edge of the glacier. We choose to take a tour that would drive us onto the glacier itself so we walk on the ice followed by a walk on the Sky Bridge a few miles down the valley.
To get up on to the glacier, we boarded a giant Ice Explorer with tires almost as tall as I am. Our driver/tour guide was a friendly, enthusiastic young woman from Australia who was as excited about her great summer job as we were with the anticipation of walking on a real glacier. Back in Australia, she was a crane operator and assured us that we were in good hands as she drove our giant snow machine down an 32% grade (not a typo) road to get onto the ice. The road was actually cut into lateral rock moraines that the glacier makes as it moves. Some of the moraines were several stories high.
There are conifers growing on the lateral moraines along the rustic road. The largest conifer was about 20 feet tall. We were surprised to learn these trees are 400 years old and have a growing season of only 3 months due to the short summer season. They only have branches on one sides because strong katabatic winds coming off the glacier prevents growth on the uphill side. We expected the tour to be cold, particularly since it was raining on and off with grey clouds overhead. I stepped off of our giant snow coach with some trepidation since we did not know if the ground would be ice, snow or some combination. The surface was like chopped up ice in most places but the little bit of sun made some of the ground soft so it was not too difficult to walk about in our hiking boots. I don’t know how others managed to walk on the surface wearing their flip flops or summer sandals.
Our walk on the glacier, scheduled for only 25 minutes, was somewhat confined to a very large flat spot but we could see upturned ice and blue crevices up ahead and behind. The blue was same color as the blue lakes or a blue sky. The depth the ice we walked on was about 900 feet thick. Neither of us were prepared for the sweeping winds that made some of our companions’ clothes flutter like a flag on a windy day. Our allotted 25-minute time was long enough to look down into the valley below, look up to the fascinating mountains above and take a few pictures. Some people bought cups with them to actually drink the glacier water-something I wished we had thought about.
The most striking thing for both of us was the fact that the glacier, like many glaciers, is actually melting. In the last 100 years, the glacier has melted several hundred feet both in depth and length. It is almost impossible not to believe in global warming after seeing the rocky remnants where the glacier reached only a few generations ago. We both wondered what would be left for our great-grandchildren to see despite the monumental effort Canada is taking to maintain the natural beauty and wildlife of their national parks.
The next stop on our Glacier Adventure was the Skywalk. The Skywalk, open since 2014, it a cliff-edged walkway, with a glass bottom, that extends 918 feet into the Sunwapta Valley below. A free audio tour accompanies your journey that explains how this construction marvel was actually built. The one-kilometer (about 60% of a mile) walkway is composed of a series of plates of glass, 4 plates thick, that allow you to look at the ground below as you walk. I am terrified of heights and was not going to get near the Skywalk, consoling myself with the idea that some fears don’t need to be confronted and tried to convince myself that the audio tour was a decent substitution for actually experiencing the walkway. In my heart, I knew that I was missing a true experience and gratefully accepted my husband’s hand as he offered to guide me along the walkway.
The walkway is a surreal experience, giving one the experience of looking down into a valley while suspended over the land. You can see years of geological change as you begin looking at the valley and then letting our eye travels upward to the mountains ahead. It was so unreal that I actually was able to look down as I walked.
The bridge sways a bit which was disconcerting considering there was very little wind during out visit. The more timid visitor can grip the handrail on the inside while walking around (this was me!) or you can walk the middle or the outer edge. All 3 options give you the opportunity to experience the landscape unimpeded by anything below. The only thing getting in the way of a spectacular picture is all of the other visitors trying to take the same spectacular picture. Even a picture of your feet in the middle of the glass plates with the valley below, is worth a post on Facebook.
Not my feet
I saw a few frightened people turn around and not make it all the way around the Skywalk. I was grateful for the reassuring, warm hand of my husband and proud of my resolve to conquer my fear of heights for at least one day of our summer adventure.
Sherrie
