Athabasca Falls and Glacier

July 22, 2016, Friday — Athabasca Falls

Anika's Notes

Early start to a tour around the big mountains of Alberta. Saw the Athabasca Falls with a cool rainbow over it! We saw the Athabasca Glacier and got to walk on it and it wasn't Actually slippery at all!. We went to see lake Peyto and it was a glacier lake! SUPER BLUE! Finally we saw Bow Lake the was cool and fun to jump around on the rocks too!! We arrived at the hotel and had dinner.

rainbow at Athabasca Falls

Our driver today, Andy (who has a huge mustache and a wonderfully grumbly-bear manner), drove us south along the Athabasca River to the Athabasca falls. Along the way he told us the story of Nurse Edith Cavell who worked in Belgium during World War I, and when the Germans took over Belgium, she helped the underground. She was captured and executed by the Germans in 1915. Mt. Edith Cavell was named for her, as was a glacier and a park nearby. Martha and Arthur went to that park and glacier the summer they went with Ben, Mia, Aron, and Natan.

Anika did it again and took the only good picture of the elk we saw

Athabasca Falls

July 22, 2016, Friday — Athabasca Glacier

Anika's Notes

We saw the Athabasca Glacier and got to walk on it and it wasn't Actually slippery at all!.

We took pictures at the Athabasca Falls, and then drove on to the Columbia Ice Fields. We left our bus at the Columbia Ice Fields Center and boarded a glacier bus with huge wheels and thick treads. It took us up to the Athabasca Glacier where we walked about on the ice, noticed the blue color of glacial ice that forms under pressure, and drank glacier water (which was cold and as pure a drink of water I have ever had. Anika and Martha sat in lawn chairs basking in the glacial sun, and Anika and Martha tried to get each other with ice down the back.

view from the Columbia Ice Fields Center: at right is the flat Athabasca Glacier we went out on

view from the Columbia Ice Fields Center

Anika next to one of the old snow trucks they used to use

Anika next to a tire of the current glacier truck

Martha and Anika on the glacier

Anika and Martha bask in the sun

glacial moraine

flag of Canada

July 22, 2016, Friday — Peyto Lake

Anika's Notes

We went to see lake Peyto and it was a glacier lake! SUPER BLUE!

We left the Athabasca (which means reed area in an early people’s language) and followed the Suhwapta River (which means wild river in that language). We took a side trip to Peyto Lake (or Wolf Lake), which is the start of the Saskatchewan River and is named after Bill Peyto.

Anika above Peyto Lake

July 22, 2016, Friday — Bow Lake

Anika's Notes

Finally we saw Bow Lake that was cool and fun to jump around on the rocks too!!

Another side trip to Bow Lake, with Bow Glacier on the right and Crows Foot Glacier on the left.

Anika at Bow Lake

Anika at the lodge built by the guide and trapper Jimmy Simpson

fireweed?

Anika with friends _____ and Marilyn at Bow Lake

Anika's Notes

We arrived at the hotel and had dinner.

Finally to Lake Louise, where we spent the night at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise. What a gorgeous place! Lake Louise was shown to guide and packer Tom Wilson by a First Nations brave, and he called it Emerald Lake, but the Provincial Governor at the time wanted to name it after his wife Louise Caroline Alberta, daughter of Queen Victoria. We had a nice dinner there in the Lakeview Lounge, and Anika had fun swimming in their big pool and hot tub.

Anika and Arthur in our room at the Fairmont

Anika and Martha in our room at the Fairmont

looking out the window of the bar

one of the dining tables

Start of Trip

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