Canada 2016 - Sunwapta Falls to Columbia Icefield

Saturday - June 18

At last! Blue skies and sunshine in the morning.

We will apologize now for lots of pictures with snowy, rocky peaks. The Icefield Parkway has a well-deserved reputation for awesome. Since today is mostly uphill we felt totally free to take lots of photo breaks.

We are now following the Sunwapta River, whose source is the Columbia Icefield.

We will not see any caribou either but we think we saw a lot of habitat.

Our exclusive lunch spot. It came with a handy guardrail for leaning our bikes.

Glacier ahead!

The viewpoint for Stutfield Glacier. We are 1/2 mile up a 2 and half mile 7% grade and feeling VERY wimpy. The effects of the nasty cold that kept both of us off the bikes for most of May combined with the altitude has taken its toll.

While waiting for our legs to recover (maybe) we struck up a conversation with Pat who became our Angel of the Road. He said "I have a pickup and could give you a ride up the hill". At first we declined but after pedaling a couple hundred feet we came back and took him up on his offer.

It was a really good decision! It was "only" 2 miles but it made the rest of the climbing we had to do much more manageable. Plus we had a great time talking to Pat, a Chicago fireman and still serving in the Air Guard. He is very involved in honoring and helping veterans.

We lost the blue sky and so the light was pretty flat as we approached the Columbia Icefield.

The rivers that originate from the Icefield end up at the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, and the Artic Ocean.

That strip of snow above Donna's head is the place that you see in the iconic pictures of people on the glacier.

This road goes up to mid-glacier. Those tour buses go everywhere.

We stayed at Icefield Campground. The ranger that greeted us when we entered recommended #24 and the view was awesome.

It was also close to the cooking shelter and bathroom...nice!

Four layers were barely enough for the evening temperature after the sun sunk behind the mountains. Thank goodness for our Nano Puff jackets!