Monday 23 April 2007

Spring Break part 3

The Icefields Parkway - the big road through the mountains from Jasper to Banff.



"The hills are alive..... with the sound of Fowlers...."





Athabasca Falls - another frozen waterfall. This one still had a steady flow of water under the ice.











This is the where the falls begin, where the water flows down below the ice.



Addie checking it out. (yeah, you have to click the photo to get a bigger view)



On our way again, awesome scenery all the way.










Time for some lunch so we stop at another frozen waterfall. This one had Totems out the front.



Down there is the bridge across the falls.





"Who's that trip-trapping over my bridge???"



No trolls down there, only a waterfall.



On the road again... (Yeah, it was a long way, plus there were lots of lookouts to stop at.)



Self take - it pays to have long arms :-)



Notice that the snow had built up to the level of the guard rail.



Scary drop down the other side, but great view.



Which is why we didn't risk any of the important family members to get the photo.



About half way along the Parkway, we came to the Columbia Icefields.
Hoping to grab a snack, we stopped at the lodge, but it looked rather snowed under.



(A brief interlude. Did you know that most North American cars don't have a handbrake? They have a park brake pedal on the floor to the left of the clutch. So, I hear the hoons ask, how does one chuck a handbrakie? Like this...)



The glacier itself.



Freya, Bron and Stu.



The kids and I headed out to check out the glacier.



Waaayyyyyyy out.



Leaving Delle to take photos.





Now, at the icefield, there was a rather large hill. A big, flat hill. A big, flat hill that looked perfect for sliding. Now, if only we had packed the sliders in the car...

Well, what do you know? We did pack them!



Up the hill we go.
(It's a long way to the top if you want to, um, slide all the way back down again.)



The view from the top.
(See those little car shaped things way off in the background? They're our cars. It was a looonnnnggg walk up to our starting line.)



Delle set herself up down near the cars to document our adventures.
Here is someone sliding on down.
(You guys have realised by now that when you click on the photos it gives you a nice big view, right?)



My first slide down ended rather short of Cayde's run.



My second slide, however, was a little more - extended :-)


(If you can't see the youtube video above this line, sorry - lots of schools and workplaces block youtube.com - try watching it at home...)

Two slides down was about all we could handle. When we got back to the cars, we realised that we'd spent two and a half hours there - oops - time to move on :-)





Quite regularly along the parkway, there would be signs warning not to stop because of avalanches.





So we stopped to take some photos.







Oh no! What is that rumbling sound? Is it a white wall of death speeding down the mountain slope to entomb our intrepid explorers, or merely Mark's hungry stomach?

Stay tuned for the next exciting episode - Spring break part 4!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

can hardly wait!mum norma