Hiking a Glacier, Lunch on Ice, Changed forever

Our helicopter delivers us to the glacier early in the morning.  (Notice how nonchalantly I say that.  Three days ago I’d never been on a helicopter and I was terrified.  Now it’s just another form of transportation.)

It is cloudy and snowy and sleety and raw.  I zip my parka (provided by Canadian Mountain Holidays*) and head onto the ice, awaiting the rest.   I have a chance to watch the  helicopter leave to pick up the last group.  This photo of the helicopter silhouetted against the cloud cover above the rounded mountaintops and glacier has always been a favorite...something about the ancient and seemingly immutable natural background and the relatively tiny human device flying over it.  

A sense of vast space

I always thought glaciers were smooth, cool ice  with lots of ‘glacial’ blue that was a product of the weight and compression of the frozen water molecules.  There’s blue--that’s about all I got right.  As we make our way along the glacier I have the feeling of a child seeing a magic show.

Glaciers pick up pieces of the earth they traverse, and then drop them as they move, most often leaving them at the edge of the ice.  The uneven ice surface is filled with rocks and dirt;  with cracks and rivulets ; with deep holes (millwells) that were started by sun-warmed stones and then expanded by flowing water; with crevasses created when the glacier moved over  underlying rock protrusions.

millwell 

Crevasses are deep, wedge-shaped fissures as wide as sixty or seventy feet and up to one hundred fifty feet deep  Yes... 1-5-0 feet deep.  

Just for the record--- I take the picture below is from the point where the crevasse is widest--and though the ice isn't slippery 'watch out or you'll slide in' ice,  I am a little nervous standing near that deep crack in the ice.  When I cross, I do so at the same point as my friends in the photo below... where it’s quite narrow and I can’t fall in.  (whew)

crossing a crevasse on a glacier

Because of the debris on the ice, the surface is not as slick and slippery as I would have expected.  At home on ice I'd be thinking about Yaktrax or cleats.  I've never tried climbing ice, I imagine I'd want cleats and a lot more to help me move with some stability.  Hiking on a glacier---not so slippery because of all the dirt, which you can see in the photo below.

It may not be slippery, but it's stlll a strenuous activity, and we work up an appetite.  Where shall we dine?  How about a barbecue at the edge of the Canoe Glacier?  Of course, doesn’t everyone do that?

lunch on a glacier

Since I've taken a lot of time to rant about the beauty of this untouched and ancient space, I feel I have to clarify that the group that runs this tour respects nature at least as much, if not more, than I do.  Canadian Mountain Holidays has placed some seating, which can be removed easily by the copter.  Nothing else remains.  We scour the area for anything to make sure of that and then get ready to take our helicopter to the next trailhead.

Our last hike is the alpine meadow that I had been expecting when I first chose to take this trip.  The gradually sloping grassy land is an easy walk --still  not as easy as that sea-level walk of home, but easy. 

As I make my way down the gentle incline, the last few days of adventure play through my mind.  I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been in a helicopter.  I've hiked through tree-filled hillsides to get above the tree line.  I've walked across a glacier, a natural phenomenon so great it shapes the earth around and beneath it just as a volcanic eruption might do from below the surface.

We are in a region so remote, the only people I have seen for the last few days are those people who arrived with me.  We are too far removed from civilization for anyone else to be here unless they have a lot of gear and a lot of time.  

I arrived afraid of heights, unwilling to stand on a mountainside.  I leave after crossing ridges, hiking switchback trails,  stepping over a glacial crevasse, walking on a glacier.  

Every new challenge brought me to a dramatic view of the world from a pinnacle I never dreamed of seeing.  In a few days, I’ve marveled at the succession of nature, at the way life overcomes almost every obstacle to carry on, at the almost incalculable age of mountains, the power of glaciers, and the beauty they all afford.  And I have faced challenges that used to scare me stiff--great heights, small spaces,  vast open spaces, and maybe....maybe...a spider. 

As I consider my upcoming departure, I realize I’m not the same person who arrived here a few days ago.

I will never be the same.

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*Canadian Mountain Holidays is the company that conducted this heli-hiking trip.  Check http://www.canadianmountainholidays.com for information on their helihiking and hell-skiing adventures.