Icefield's Parkway

The next day we drove up the Icefield's Parkway to Jasper. The 3 hour drive took us all day. This is supposed to be one of the most beautiful drives in all the world. And it certainly was beautiful, but, for me, cold trumps beauty, so it didn't make for a great trip. It was 28 (-3 Celcius) degrees in the morning and it didn't warm up to the 40's ( 8 C) until the late afternoon. Had it been around 75 (23 C) degrees it would have been great for exploring, and we may have hiked a ways off the road, but at 28, the view from the car is nice enough.

We visited Glacier National Park, where we got to walk on a glacier. The area you can see is just 3% of the glacier and this is the largest glacier south of the arctic circle. In places it is deeper than the Empire State building is tall. We were at 7000 feet above sea level.

We also stopped at several of the falls that are fed by glacier melt water. The water is that color because snow forms around a speck of dust. As the snow/ice melts the dust runs off with it, but it is so fine that it does not settle to the bottom of the water. The suspended dust then makes the water look teal. It would be neat to see some of these falls and streams in the spring when things are just starting to melt.