The next morning, we were up bright and early again.  There was no time to sleep in, not when we wanted to be first in line at the Columbia Icefields.

It was cool and damp when we left Jasper to drive to the Columbia Icefields; it had rained during the early morning hours, and for the first time since our arrival, it was cool enough to wear a jacket and long sleeves.  All along the Icefields Parkway, the roads were still wet, and the clouds were hanging low over the mountains.  This made our long drive very enjoyable.

We arrived at the Columbia Icefields Center around 8:30 that morning - much earlier than expected.  Once again, it was to our advantage to be early-risers, because we had beat the crowds.  Though we weren't first in line to purchase tickets for the 9:00 a.m. Sno-Coach Tour, we were part of a very small group, and that was just fine with us.

Our small group gathered outside at the gate at 8:50 a.m.; and at 9:00 a.m. sharp, the bus driver took our tickets and directed us onto a tour bus that would take us out to the Sno-Coach stop, at the base of the Icefields.  Along the way, we were given a lecture about the Icefields and the land surrounding them.  We learned about the ancient spruce forests, with trees that are as old as 600 years but continue to survive in the harshest conditions, even though they are so close to the timberline.  We also learned about how the icefields and the glaciers were formed, millions of years ago, and how the growth and the recession of the glaciers caused the formation of the moraines - the mountains of rocks and debris that were moved by the ice over the passage of time.  Most importantly, we learned that Mount Athabasca, which stands at an elevation of over 11,000 feet, is a triple divide, meaning that its watershed travels in three directions and ends up in three different oceans: the Pacific, the Atlantic, and the Arctic. 

After a five minute bus ride, we arrived at the base of the Athabasca Glacier, where we transferred to one of the awaiting Sno-Coaches - a large, red bus with enormous tires made especially for travel on ice.  These tires are sixty-four inches in diameter - even taller than me - and were manufactured by an American company, specifically for such use.  The Sno-Coaches are owned and operated by Brewster, the company that runs all of the tours in the Canadian Rockies.

As we settled into our seats, our tour guide came on board and introduced himself as Mathieu.  While he was one of the most experienced drivers on the crew, he decided to pass himself off as an amateur that morning for the entertainment value. First of all, he asked us if we were nervous; a few people raised their hands.  He then explained that, in order to get onto the glacier, we had to travel down "that road" - one of the steepest commercial roads in the world, at a grade of 15%.  "Now who's nervous?" he asked.

I wasn't.  After all, I'm married to the man who took an Oldsmobile over an equally steep road, in reverse.  Why should I be nervous now?

Of course, there was no reason to be nervous at all.  As the Sno-Coach started down the steep road, Mathieu explained that the buses are equipped with a device that keeps them from going over four miles an hour as they ride down the hill - sort of like the downhill assist control on our 4Runner.  With this device, the Sno-Coach crept down the steep road, slowly and surely, never once accelerating over four miles an hour. 

The Sno-Coach followed a graded road on the ice to a large area that was surrounded by blue safety cones.  This particular area, as Mathieu explained, had been specifically designated as a safe area in which visitors were allowed to walk around on the glacier. The ice there was over 350 feet thick, or roughly the height of the Eiffel Tower, and it had been inspected to ensure that there weren't any fissures or crevices into which visitors could fall.  He warned us that, for our safety, we should all stay within the area surrounded by the blue cones, as the glacier was extremely slippery and full of ice holes that could be dangerous.

That didn't stop John, though; as soon as the driver was distracted, he carefully stepped across the glacier and started snapping pictures of the blue-tinged ice. 

Mary and I, on the other hand, had fun walking around on the ice.  The surface of the glacier within the blue-coned area had been specially graded, which made it easier for us to walk upon it; but it was still slippery in some places so each step was made with care.  Mary was especially cautious as she crossed the ice and soon discovered that it was much more fun to play with the pieces of ice that she found and to take pictures of her Webkinz Snowman on the glacier.

Meanwhile, John was still out on the glacier, looking at all of the ice holes.  He found one that was so big that he had to call me over to check it out.  It must have been three feet across and several feet deep, and the water inside of it was cold and fresh and tasted great.  It was amazing! 

What was even more amazing was that John never once stepped in an ice hole, the whole time that he was out on the glacier, outside of the safe zone.  Me, on the other hand?  As I made my way across the graded area, back to where I had left Mary, my boot got caught in an ice hole that was about six inches in diameter and was momentarily submerged in freezing cold water.  Five seconds was all it took before my left book and sock was completely soaked.  All I could do at that point was laugh; it was pretty funny!

Just before it was time to leave, we asked one of the other people on our tour if we could get them to take a family picture of us on the Icefields.  Afterwards, Mary and I climbed back inside of the Sno-Coach to warm up, and John went back out onto the glacier one last time to take a few more pictures.  He was one of the last few people back on the bus when it was time to go, but at least he had some incredible pictures to share with us.

As Mathieu started driving us back to the station, another Sno-Coach passed us on its way out onto the glacier - and it was completely packed with people!  It was only the second Sno-Coach run of the day, and it was filled to capacity.  We considered ourselves lucky; once again, our timing had been impeccable.

During our ride, I noticed that Mary had been playing with something; upon closer inspection, I saw that she had taken a small piece of ice from the glacier and was sucking on it.  At that same moment, Mathieu asked us if anyone had taken a drink from the glacier or had eaten any of the ice.  Mary giggled and raised her hand; in fact, a lot of us did.  "That's okay," he continued, "but you know that you don't want to drink too much of that glacier water.  It could take ten years off of you!"

"Mary!" I exclaimed with a big smile. "You'd better not drink too much of that!  We can't take ten years off of you!  You're not even nine yet!"

Once we arrived at the Sno-Coach station, we had to wait about ten minutes for the next tour bus to take us back to the Icefields Center.  While we waited, we were allowed to wander around and check out some of the other pieces of equipment that they had sitting around, such as one of the first machines they had ever used to take people out onto the glacier.  We also passed the time by taking pictures of Mary in front of the Sno-Coach, for perspective.  When Mathieu saw that, he suggested that Mary climb back inside of the Sno-Coach and sit in the driver's seat, so that she could see what it was like to be behind the wheel of such a large vehicle; she thought that was the coolest thing in the world.

Eventually, two tour buses arrived, depositing two more large tour groups at the station.  John and I watched them file off of the bus, and we couldn't help but snigger as we saw how some of them were dressed.  There were several people wearing shorts and flip-flops, and they were already complaining that they were cold.  Really? I thought.  Did you not think this through?  You wore flip-flops to go walking around on the ice?

Some people are just daft, I guess!

As soon as the first bus was empty, we were ushered on board for our return trip to the Icefields Center.  Our driver completed the tour by telling us about the employees who work at the center.  He explained that they all live there about five to six months out of the year - from May to October - and that they are in a completely self-contained community there.  They generate their own electricity, pumped their own water from a man-made reservoir, and live in quarters on the other side of the highway from the Icefields Center.  The only thing they don't have is cellular signal; instead, they use satellite phones to keep in touch with their friends and family.

At the end of our tour, we exited the tour bus and made a beeline directly for our car.  Now that the Icefields Center was filling up with crowds, we decided that it was time for us to leave.

On the way back to Jasper, we chose to take a little detour.  During our journey to Jasper, two days earlier, we had seen the junction with Highway 93A - a section of the old Banff-Jasper Highway that is still in use today, though it is nowhere nearly as crowded as the Icefields Parkway.  There is a warning sign at the start of the road, that the next 24 kilometers are rough.  Now, "rough road", to us, means unpaved and not maintained; here, it meant that the road was paved, but it wasn't as well-maintained as the main highway.  Unfortunately, it also meant that the picnic areas and pullouts didn't have as many restrooms - not like those along the main highway, where there was a pit toilet at every stop.  Unfortunately, Mary had to pee, and there was nowhere to stop; like a trooper, she did her best to hold it.

Of course, along the way, we happened to see wildlife - a small black bear, foraging for berries along the side of the highway.  Naturally, we created an animal jam when we stopped to take pictures of the bear, but he didn't seem to mind; he just kept at his business as if we weren't there.  Eventually, he crossed the highway in front of us and cantered down the embankment on the other side, disappearing from view. 

Mary was enthralled by the bear sighting - so enthralled that she almost forgot that she had to pee.  Fortunately, we weren't far from Jasper, but it was certainly going to be a photo-finish.  John thought it would be a good idea to take a shortcut through town, in hopes of getting to our cabin faster; but his shortcut was thwarted when the road was closed right in front of us, to allow the train to pass.  To make matters worse, the train wasn't just passing through; it was changing tracks, and that seemed to take forever.  Knowing full well that we were in the midst of a potty emergency, John flipped a U-turn and looked for an alternate route through town.

We made it back to our cabin just in time to avoid the potty accident; we were also just in time for lunch.  Instead of going out to eat, though, we stayed there and made sandwiches, while we tried to figure out what to do with the rest of our day.  John suggested that we pay a visit to Mount Robson Provincial Park, which he had visited the day before; he had enjoyed it so much that he now wanted us to go there to enjoy it, too.  "Sure, let's go!" I said, so with that, we finished our lunch and climbed back into the car to begin our journey to Mount Robson.

To get to Mount Robson, we took Highway 16 - the Yellowhead Highway - west into British Columbia.  Along the way, of course, we did some geocaching; we had already found three caches in Alberta, but now we needed to get at least one in British Columbia, so that we could have two Canadian provinces to add to our numbers.  Fortunately, it turned out to be a good day for caching; we managed to find a total of three caches - one in Alberta, along the Miette River, and two in British Columbia, just inside the Mount Robson park boundary.  That gave us a total of six caches for our entire trip - not bad, considering that we weren't devoting a whole lot of time to the game during our trip.

Our route through Mount Robson Provincial Park took us past Moose Lake, which, as John pointed out to us, was huge.  This lake seemed to go on forever; in fact, John estimated that it was about thirteen miles long.  When he had been there the day before, he had driven by the lake slowly, in hopes of seeing a moose along the banks of Moose Lake, but to no avail.  We didn't see any this time either, but we did marvel at how vast this lake was.

We soon came to the Visitor's Center, where Mary and I caught our first glimpse of Mount Robson...and, naturally, the peak was covered with clouds.  I guess we weren't as lucky as John had been, to see Mount Robson on a clear day.

We were lucky enough to be there while the Visitor's Center was open, so we stopped in to check it out.  While inside, we bought some souvenirs and obtained some free trail maps to add to our collection of brochures that we were gathering during our trip.  We also visited the educational exhibit downstairs, which dealt with the various settlers who came to the Canadian Rockies almost a hundred years ago, as well as the aboriginal people who had already inhabited the land.

After leaving the Visitor's Center, we continued through the park to the western boundary and soon entered the National Forest (or the equivalent thereof).  We thought we might drive all the way to Prince George, for no apparent reason, but we thought better of the idea and turned around at the first rest area we came to. 

Now, anyone who knows us should know that we could never leave Mount Robson Provincial Park without doing a hike, even if it was a short one.  John selected a short hike to Overlander Falls, which, according to the literature, is a thirty-minute hike to a pretty waterfall on the Fraser River.  The trail is completely paved and descends about a hundred feet to the falls, over a distance of a half-kilometer.  It turned out to be a very easy hike; it took us only ten minutes to hike to the falls, and another ten minutes to hike back to the car - twenty minutes total.  Not bad for a last minute day hike!

After our short visit to Mount Robson, we started back towards Jasper.  True, there was still so much that we could do in the park; but it was getting late in the day and we had lots to do that evening, following dinner.  For one thing, we still had grocery shopping to do, in preparation for our upcoming backpacking trip to the Fiddle River.

Once in Jasper, we went downtown to look for a place to eat.  We weren't really dressed nice enough to go to any of the nice restaurants, so we chose to go for pizza and beer.  There were several pizza places along the main drag, but it was the Jasper Pizza Place that won our business that night for its atmosphere and menu - and the pizza was great, too!  We devoured every piece and washed it down with a cold Grasshopper Ale.  It was a good way to end the day.

After dinner, we browsed through some of the shops nearby, to do some souvenir shopping.  One of the shops was an outdoor gear shop, where we purchased another backcountry spice wheel (to replace our empty one, which we had used to season our food while cooking in the cabin), as well as a new "Life is Good" shirt for Mary.  John also priced binoculars to replace the ones that he had lost during our backpacking trip to Twin Falls, but he decided that they were too expensive there. 

Once we had finished our business downtown, we returned to Bear Hill Lodge to turn in for the night and rest up for the next day's adventure... 

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