Day 5: Athabasca Glacier

Time to move on to the Athabasca Glacier. This is a glacier you can pay to take a big monster bus up onto and walk around and such.

This is on our way.

It pretty much rained or sprinkled all day.

This is on the bus.

And this is us on the glacier. He said the ice is 100 feet deep. 

I traded photo opportunities with another traveler.

These kids thought we were in fresh snow.

Crazy how thick it was.

This was another glacier.

These are the lateral tailings. He said the glacier used to be this tall...another 100 feet!

So blue!

These guys were filming something.

This guy was plowing as we were pulling away.

Look how blue it is. It's so interesting.

Look at those ruts from erosion. 

This is our bus going back to the visitor center. There's a river there ahead that is actually good for the glacier, they said. Coming from the monster bus depot until they hit the glacier is all rock and dirt and sand. So before they drive onto the glacier, this river washes off the tires and creates less impact in the glacier.

And then, if you can see the bus up ahead, it's going up the 18% incline. The bus driver talked about the bus and the transmission and all that, how super awesome it was and how it worked but I tuned him out when I couldn't understand him anymore. All I know is that it's super steep, the bus is awesome in that it doesn't roll down the hill with all its passengers and that the busses cost about $1.2 million and each tire costs $5k.

As we moved toward Jasper we stopped at some waterfalls.

And then on our way to Jasper we saw a black bear!! It was awesome! We have those in Washington but I've never seen them. They always say to watch for them in the National Park area, especially, but I never see them....

He was right next to the road. Only stayed there about 30 seconds. 

Next up is Jasper!