It was a day trip turned into overnight. It was a long weekend turned into a very, very long weekend. But the girls are in bed and I can pore over my photos of our trip to the Columbia Icefield.
Can you believe that as a lifelong Alberta girl I've never actually been to the Icefields? Only one drive by as an adult, in the middle of winter, where we were mostly concerned with merely safely arriving at our destination. So when Hubby suggested a road trip I couldn't really say no, could I?
Poor planning on our part led to a frantic search for mittens and boots, a stop at the mall, and not enough snacks. But we grabbed the last Ice Explorer monster bus and got our canned tourist experience. And it was so worth it! The mechanical geek in Hubby was quite enthralled with the monster bus, as was the Monster. (Guess what her new career aspirations are?) And all of us were blown away by the expanse of the glacier.
All I could think was, "Holy Crap! I'm standing on a glacier!" And it makes me want to reread Icefields by Thomas Wharton. We had the pre-packaged experience, I know, but it was still awesome. And despite my, I'm struggling to describe it any other way.
While I don't think the girls could grasp the immensity of what was in front of us, they could grab the ice, lick it, and ask why the mountains were so big. Soon enough we'll have them hiking and maybe even backcountry skiing to grow up as good mountain girls.
Instead, we ventured out to Maple Leaf Grille and Lounge. After a day of nothing but mediocre snacks Hubby and I decided we wanted a good meal. While I'm not sure the late night with the girls was worth it (it was close to midnight when they finally fell asleep), the food was pretty damn good.
But the best thing we ingested all day was the water, running in a stream, over a thousand feet of ice.
4 comments:
whoa-what cool pictures !~! I would love to see the glaciers too. Yosemite high country is close and it is incredibly beautiful.
I've been there years ago and it was amazing. It was a hot day and I couldn't believe how the temperature dropped between the parking lot and the glacier.
I stepped in glacial mud and ended up tossing out the boots. They dried like cement!
Hmmm...it's a lot longer trek to "the glacier" than it was the first tim (70s) I ventured forth. What does that tell ya?!! Same all over the world. Let's enjoy it while we can.
wow i bet those memories will stay with your girls for a long long time. :)
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