Columbia Icefields

4-18-2015

     There is a mouse in the car. It stole a cracker and cheese rinds from the small collection of garbage we had. It chewed the tiniest hole in one of the granola bags and stole a dried cherry. We also found a pistachio and a pumpkin seed, and I have no idea where those came from. It keeps finding pumpkin seeds, too. It's baffling.

     So far it has chewed a little of Luke's comforter, but thankfully just the cover and not into the feathers. It chewed major holes in my favorite fleece pullover, and it's ruined. It also chewed through the pocket of my rope bag. And for some reason it has an obsession with napkins, because it keeps finding them and steeling them to use for its nest, which it keeps making in Luke's slipper. At least it hasn't chewed the feather pillow, feather comforter, or any of our nice, down jackets.  But my fleece sweatshirt was the last straw for me, and this is war. We got a hotel room tonight just so we could empty the whole inside of the car, set traps, and catch this little bugger. It's going down.

     On a more positive note, the good part of today was seeing the Columbia Icefield. Well, we didn't actually see it, but we did step on it. It was just snowing too hard to actually see anything but an occasional peak of the surrounding mountains. That white, snow covered glacier up there? It was well hidden in the blowing snow. The cool part was how we got to it: a monster bus built for snow travel. It was a red, short nosed bus lifted up on 6 giant tires, 2 in front and 4 in the back, that were almost as tall as I am, with treads the size of my hand. It could drive in 4 wheel drive or 6 wheel drive, and it could drive straight up and down hills. I know, because we did just that. We literally drove over the moraines right onto the glacier, drove a little ways up, got out and walked around, then drove back. All with an informative tour guide, of course. It was cool! It's the only triple continental divide in the world. The Columbia Icefield and surrounding glaciers (once all one piece but now separated) are the headwaters for the Columbia River, which runs into the Pacific Ocean. They're also the headwaters for the Athabasca River, which joins other rivers and eventually runs into the Arctic Ocean. It is also the headwaters for the North Saskatchewan River, which eventually ends in the Atlantic Ocean.  Pretty cool, eh? I thought so. It's pretty wild to be at the origin of some of the major rivers of North America.