JULY 8TH, TRAVEL DAY TO COLUMBIA ICEFIELDS

What a great day! The drive was gorgeous. I made a a lot of pictures but this was something you have to see with your own eyes. The Canadian Rockies are so spectacular. Your drive down this valley with snow-covered mountains on each side and around very curve it just beautiful. They are so big and massive, it is like you can almost reach out and touch them. There is the Bow River that is turquoise in color and has a very swift current that almost runs parallel with the road the majority of the time. Beautiful with the mountains and river. I just can't do it justice. As we entered Jasper National Park, we started a very long, steep grade. The MH did great but we were a little nervous after our problems outside of Big Timber, MT. We had a major change in weather. Drizzling rain, windy and very cold.

We all pulled into the campground at the icefields, which was a dry camp for the night. Bundled up with all the warm clothes and rain gear we could get on and headed for our tour. We hardly recognized each other. This place is very popular and their were a lot of people. They run tours every 30 minutes up to the ice fields. First we boarded a bus and drove up the mountain about 3/4 of a mile. Even though you can see the cup of the ice field from the Visitor center, that is just the beginning. We then transferred to our ice mobiles or glacier buses. They have wheels 5'tall and are made for ice travel. We descended down about a 45 degree road (I am not kidding) and onto an ice road. This icefield is about 2.5 miles wide and 3.5 miles long. The ice is 1000 to 1500' deep. There are 2 glaciers above it (Columbia and Athabasca) After a short ride, we got out and walked over it. Pretty amazing. We could only walk in a certain area that was deemed safe as there are huge crevices. Some of them are hidden by a thin layer of ice and they can be as deep as 100'. Next to the Arctic, it is the largest ice field in the world.

What I liked about it was I didn't have to take a helicopter ride to see it. The weather lightened up and there was no wind or rain but still cold. Very nice. However, when we went back down, it had started raining and the wind was really blowing. We have really been blessed with good luck on the weather. The rain hasn't been a problem on any of our excursions. In these mountains, they say this is very typical weather.

Some of our group stayed at the visitor center and had dinner, but we went back to our RV, got out of all those clothes and had a nice salad and some Brunswick stew. After watching Clear and Present Danger, we slept soundly. It got pretty cold and some of our group had to borrow blankets from others, but we were great! This lived up to my expectations and is a must see for anyone heading this direction.