In a day-trip, I cycled from Lake Louise to this visitors' center (about half way to Jasper) and back along the Ice Fields Parkway (Highway 93). I used this postcard because all my photos did not turn out well.
The Columbia Icefield is about 325 sq km and around 350m thick. It is a vast resevoir of ice which feeds six major glaciers and four of the continent's major river systems: the Columbia, Fraser, Mackenzie and Saskatchewan.
These glaciers are in a continuous state of motion: they are being created at the top, gravity pulls them down ever so slowly, and they melt away at the bottom. These meltwaters were originally snow that fell on the top of the ice sheet about 150-200 years ago. The water will eventually arrive into either the Pacific Ocean (west), the Arctic Ocean (north) or the Atlantic Ocean(to the east).
In the postcard, you can see the glacier in the center. At the toe of that glacier is where I am standing (in the photo on the right.)
It was July and as I cycled, it was snowing! |
