Canada: Columbia Icefield

Hans rose first and went to the shower house. I had bathed the night before, so as I was getting dressed in the car I was startled by more than the usual number of people walking through our campsite. This was odd since our site was near the back of the campground and not near any main thoroughfares. Additionally, Hans arrived from the opposite direction of the showers. Apparently, a herd of elk had also camped on the grounds during the night. They were just moving out when Hans and a group of people were caught unawares and surrounded by the animals. Hans tried to sneak past the herd but a female grunted and took a swipe at him. He had no choice but to find another route to the showers and then take a backwards loop around the campground to get back to our site.

We packed up our tent and checked out of the campground. The guidebook recommended breakfast at Papa George’s in town, so we decided to give it a try. We felt shamefully scruffy in our hiking shoes and bright polyester outdoor clothes as we were shown to our table in the decorated room by the well-polished staff but upon looking around we saw we weren’t the only ones dressed for a day out in the woods. I had excellent eggs Benedict and Hans had an enormous egg-and-everything skillet served on a sizzling plate and piled high. We slowly enjoyed our last coffee before driving south to the icefields parkway.

The drive only takes a few hours, but we were in no hurry and took advantage of all the viewpoints listed on our map. Gradually, we began to gain elevation as we headed for the highest point in the park, Columbia Icefield. There was an old visitors center that looked like it had seen better days when Athabasca Glacier (one of the “toes” of the icefield) reached all the way down to the highway. Now, it had receded a long ways and was retreating back into the mountains. Despite all this there was still a considerable draw of tourists and there were people everywhere. The moraine had signposts marking where the glacier had been in the past and I stood at the one for 1982 for a photo-op. Despite the easy hike I was a little lightheaded from the higher elevation.

We proceeded down the highway a little further to the Wilcox Pass trailhead. Before the glaciers receded, the valley through which the highway goes was covered with treacherous ice. Instead travelers used the ridge on the east side of the valley to go around. Now the area serves as a recreational trail for backpackers. We gained about 1000 feet but the climb was very gradual and once you reached the top the ridge was fairly flat and one could see further into the icefield and the distant peaks of Banff and Jasper.

After our hike we drove to the Beauty Creek Youth Hostel for the night. We were hoping for a good night’s sleep but to Hans’ dismay the bunks were little more than stacked wooden boxes that were exactly six feet long. Hans is six foot one. He tried to make the best of it but when we had finally fallen asleep two more travelers arrived late in the evening and made so much noise in the cabin (that offered no sound dampening whatsoever) for so long I was never able to fall asleep again.