Columbia Ice-Failed

On my plane ride to Calgary my seatmate, a man who had retired at 27 and somehow escaped without me strangling him in a jealous rage, said “You HAVE to go to the Columbia Icefield!”  Apparently it has receded tremendously in the decades since I last saw it. I vividly recall running toward the plain of ice and recoiling in horror as a stranger next to me suddenly began urinating on its edge.  

The glacier no longer covers a field. It’s a white blotch between two mountain peaks.  At least, I think it is because we didn’t get there. Somehow, cousin BA and I both thought the Icefield was a short hop outside of Banff. Only a chance conversation with a family from Manitoba revealed the truth: it was another 281 km away!  BA and I and BA’s Mom, my Aunt Wanda, all agreed we weren’t up for that length of a trek there-and-back in one afternoon. I wasn’t even disappointed.

So instead we hung out for a bit in Lake Louise (do not eat in the Lake Louise Village Bar and Grill!) and then went back to Banff. It had been more than a quarter-century since I was there and it’s just as breathtaking.

It doesn’t matter which direction you look from Banff, you’ll see a mountain. It is stunning.

As of this trip, I decided to toss my camera and use only my iPhone for photo-taking. The only downside is the constantly draining battery. But when Mother Nature gives you a set-up like this, it doesn’t really matter what you use to capture it.

And the beauty just goes on and on. Even thunder sounds musical when it bounces off the Rockies.

I was quite surprised to hear a family member or two say they would feel claustrophobic in a setting surrounded by mountains. And that feeling was even more pronounced in Drumheller where the Royal Terrell museum is located and the hoodoos are near.  What’s a hoodoo? Whatever it wants! *rimshot*  The real answer, tomorrow.  But first, the crew of cousins that went on the trip: Aunt Wanda, Barbara-Anne, Wanda (Jr?), Dave (Wanda’s boyfriend) and Mike.