Our Expertise
Checking In
The expertise begins on the Columbia Icefield Glacier Discovery Centre. After check-in, you may seize meals at one of many eating places, choose up some items, or learn the interpretive shows to be taught extra concerning the space’s geology, nature, and wildlife.
We first checked into the lodge to drop our baggage off. Then we picked up lunch on the Chalet, a cafeteria-style restaurant. Jacob normally goes with the protected wager, whereas I like experimenting with my meals selections. Why not have enjoyable with it? As a result of 90% of the time, it backfires. When you’re ordering one thing right here, Jacob’s hen tenders with fries have been the only option, particularly for the reason that fries have been precisely how we favored them.
After ending our meals, we lined up for the bus.
Native Tip: No restrooms can be found throughout the expertise, so remember to go earlier than you allow!
ATHABASCA Glacier
The bus experience is a brief one from Discovery Centre. It takes you throughout the road to the glacier’s base, the place you switch to an Ice Explorer. These big transport automobiles appear like one thing out of an area film and take you safely onto the glacier. There are solely 23 on the earth, one in Antarctica and the remaining on the Columbia Icefields.
Photograph Tip: There are many home windows alongside the facet and the roof so you may benefit from the views as you go, and in the event you’re hoping to shoot pictures and video, get a row the place the window can open so you may shoot with no glare.
After arriving on the glacier, your driver offers you the time to satisfy again on the Ice Explorer, and also you’re free to roam. We had about 25 minutes on the glacier, which was loads.
There may be an space roped off the place you may roam freely. The ropes is likely to be annoying for pictures, however security comes first. Deliver a water bottle so you may style the glacier water.
Native Tip: It’s normally round 27° F (15° C) levels cooler on the glacier than on the Discovery Centre, and it’s usually windy, so pack accordingly! Jacob and Rob have been positively a lot hotter than I used to be of their sleeping bag onesies.
The Columbia Icefield Skywalk
When our time was up, the Ice Explorer took us again to the bus then we rode about 10 minutes north to the Skywalk. The glass-floor Skywalk takes you over the sting of a cliff 918 toes above the valley ground, the place you may take within the views of the Canadian Rockies.
There are a number of interpretive indicators alongside the brief stroll, and in the event you’re excited by studying extra concerning the historical past and geology, they’ve guided excursions too! We didn’t do the guided tour however stopped by to take a look at the bones of a Massive Horn Sheep and Mountain Goats..
In contrast to different Skywalks we’ve been to, we didn’t must put on any shoe coverings. They ask that you just wipe them off on the mats earlier than strolling on the glass. We additionally might shoot our personal pictures and stroll at our personal tempo.
Once we have been completed, we headed again in direction of the car parking zone, the place they’ve buses just a few occasions an hour to choose up anybody completed and take them again to the Discovery Centre. You possibly can keep as lengthy or as brief as you need!
Native Tip: This season, a household of mountain goats lives below the bridge. We noticed one sleeping on the cliffside.
