Walking On Water (Frozen Thats Is!) - Athabasca Glacier Hike

Walking on to the glacier
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Andy got up at 7.30am as we had to book ourselves onto to the access list for Lake O'Hara for tomorrow. Lake O'Hara is a limited access area in Yoho National Park and unless you book 3+ months in advance there are only 6 seat available 24hrs before on a first come first served basis. After several attempts Andy got through and got the last 2 seats available - both well chuffed! Both showered, backed up our stuff and had a large breakfast in preparation for our glacier hike. Andy also met 2 women from the England rugby team who had just lost in the final to New Zealand in the womens worldcup in Edmonton. Left hostel at 9.20am and drove the 105km south to the icefields centre and on the way saw a coyote having a dump on the side of the road! We met up with the guide Peter, his lovely dog George and the other hikers where we were given extra layers of clothes to put on and crampons to put on our boots. The weather was slightly overcast when we set off and hiked up the moraine to the edge of the glacier. Peter explained how the glacier was receeding 25m a year and also thinning which was all mainly due to climate change. We first set foot on the glacier at 11.15pm and at first it was surreal to be walking on the ice, well its not something you do everyday! Once we got passed the lower section of the glacier we were almost blinded by the extreme whiteness of the pristine ice/snow.

Eating lunch, halfway to the ice falls
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All 16 of us crunched along in single file tracing Peters footprints so as to avoid the cravasses and millwells. After 2km we hiked off to one side to sit on some rocks to eat lunch at 1.30pm. We only stopped for 10-15mins and then continued hiking up towards the ice falls. As we did it began to snow and there was already more snow laying on this section which slowed us down as Peter had to continually check where it was safe for us to tread. Got to the foot of the ice falls at 3.20pm, after Peter had fallen up to his waist in a shallow millwell! We couldn't go any further due to the massive cravasses in the icefields. We stayed about 15mins before heading back down the glacier, stopping to peer into large millwells. We got off the glacier at 4.30pm having had a brilliant time. The experience was unforgettable and it was so interesting to learn about the glacier. We arrived at the hostel in Lake Louise at 6.15pm where we managed to get a room upstairs in the 2nd building which we were very happy about. We met our room mates Katrina and Richard, a couple of Aussie park rangers, who were very nice. Both of us were pretty tired from the glacier hike and our faces were a bit chapped!