Insights Along The Icefields Parkway
Today we traversed one of the more beautifully adorned highways that I've ever sat on a car seat through, Highway 93 AKA The Icefields Parkway through Banff and Jasper National Parks in Canada. I hadn't hurled down this particular bit of lake, waterfall, towering peak, and glacier adorned asphalt since I was a kid in the mid nineties, and I had one particular destination on my mind: The Columbia Icefields.
My mom visited as a kid in the seventies, me in the nineties, and I wanted my kids to visit too! It's super fun to scramble up the retreating icefield, get windbeaten, ooh and aah over the exorbantly priced tours to walk on ice, and ponder just how far the glacier has retreated since the last time you'd been there.
My children had never seen a glacier before today, so getting to share that moment with them was pretty awesome. I like to look at everything, but growing up I had a view of no less than five glaciers out of my kitchen window, used to make slushies from icebergs from the salt water glacier down the road, and could stride out onto a glacier whenever I wished. It was getting to experience the overall awe from my family, friends, and people around the world that made my day today.
Although I am reasonably sure that I might have slightly irritated a few of my crew by shouting out, in a South Carolinian accent, like Wendell this dear old logger that inhabited our logging camp with us long ago did whenever he saw a glacier:
"It's a glusher! Oooeeee! Look it all that there eeeyyccce!"
Girl's got to have a bit of fun sometimes.
On a more serious note, this section of earth is uber-majestic and i definitely recommend a jaunt through all it's gloriousness!!
And as always, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's glacial silt covered iPhone.
Additional apologetic addendum: Any posts that I make this week will be made from my phone, so my usual formatting and generikat's shelf footer will be on hiatus until I get home next week, sorry my dear followers, I didn't bring my laptop to the woods.