On_a_Lark: June 04, 2012 – Hinton/Jasper KOA, Hinton, AB, Canada

Monday, June 4, 2012

June 04, 2012 – Hinton/Jasper KOA, Hinton, AB, Canada

Today was a lot longer day than we had anticipated. We started out about 8 this morning. Everything went okay until I missed the turn off from CAN 1 to 93. About 60 miles later, up and down some very steep grades, we were still on Hwy. 1 and I (Larry) started wondering why we hadn’t seen a single sign for Jasper or the Columbia Icefields. After checking with the Milepost book, we realized we had missed where #1 and 93 split. So we had to backtrack the 60 miles, including the sections where I had said “I’m glad we’re not on that side”, to catch the right highway. There is no such thing as taking the next cross road to get back on track. That will teach me to program the GPS since my memory program left something to be desired. But, on the bright side we got to see some more inspiring country.

Once back on the right track we headed up to the Columbia Icefield. We were able to get tickets for a tour leaving in about 20 minutes. They took us on a short bus ride up to the depot where we meet the Terra Bus with huge tires that would go out onto the glacier. The Terra Bus left the terminal and went down an 18 degree grade before heading up and out onto the glacier. This 18 degree grade is the steepest grade they allow passenger carriers to travel on. At the point where we were allowed to walk around on the glacier, the ice depth was 1000 ft. They told us that once we got off of the Terra Bus, they were not responsible for our safety and that we should not venture past some blue cones they had set up (of course several did go past the cones). We have read where people have occasionally fallen into a crevice or a melted hole that has frozen over on the top. It was surprisingly not at all windy and didn’t feel near as cold there as we had expected. We were lucky and beat the rain that they had said was expected to come in over the mountains today.