Columbia Icefields

So this past weekend Michelle and I teamed up with our friends G and Jon for a fantastic few days on the wind swept expanses of the Columbia Icefields. It was Michelle and myselfs first time up on the neve and we could not have asked for better people to be up there with.


On our first day we navigated to the "trench" where people usually camp for an attempt of Mt.Columbia. We could see the monolith outlines of the peaks around us but visiblitiy was pretty limited to a few hundred metres mostly. A cold night ensued and a new stove barely worked to sputter up just enough water for dinner and soup-barely! Really nice. Above is coming up the Athabasca Icefall-Better eat pasta the night before to mach through there!


We awoke to bluebird weather and my cold that I have had for a few days escaped my mind as the thought of being out in the sunshine was overwhelming. Here is Jonny and G-Force checking GPS facts "13km from the car to the trench" I think is what they were saying.
Michelle in the tent. It was great to be up there with her, She brought smiles to the group often.
Our camp from the west side of the trench coming back from Columbia. The hot weather and new snow turned us around and back to camp. We made it out the same day at 2300 or so. Pretty dreamy skiing down the glacier in the Twilight.
Yup, thats a sledder on the Columbia Icefield and yes that Mt. Bryce in the backgroud. I dont know what to say about this other than we were all stunned. Both because of how they got up there as well as the fact that what they were doing was legal. The Icefields are on the Ab/Bc border and they were on the BC side, Barely. They shoud probably make it a UNESCO site to stop this kind of thing. Water form this area goes to every place on the continent.