Glacier Tour on Athabasca Glacier, Canada

Athabasca Glacier: What It Looks Like, What It Used to Look Like, and What You Can Still Do

The marker posts along the Athabasca Glacier access path show where the glacier’s edge was in each decade from the 1890s to the present. The post marking 1890 is a significant walk from the current ice face, approximately 1.5 kilometres. The posts marking the 1990s are a few hundred metres back. The most recent post and the current terminus are perhaps 200 metres apart. Standing among these posts and looking at the distances is a more immediately legible demonstration of climate change than any graph, and it precedes your ice explorer vehicle ride with information that should inform how you think about what you’re standing on.

The Athabasca Glacier is one of the six principal outlets of the Columbia Icefield, which straddles the continental divide between Jasper and Banff National Parks in Alberta. The glacier has retreated approximately 1.5 kilometres since 1890 and lost half its volume. The marker posts along the access path indicate where the glacier’s edge was in each decade going back to the 1890s. The most recent post and the current glacier edge are perhaps 200 metres apart. This is a good thing to actually stand and look at before getting on the ice explorer vehicle.

The Ice Explorer Tour

Brewster’s Ice Explorer tour is the dominant commercial experience. Large modified snowcoach vehicles (the term “Ice Explorer” is Brewster’s trademark) drive up a steep access road, cross the toe of the glacier, and park on the glacier surface for about 30 minutes. Passengers can walk on the ice surface, drink meltwater from a collection point (genuinely good water), and take photographs. The whole experience from the lower parking area takes about 90 minutes.

Cost is around CAD$60 for adults. It is unambiguously a tourist operation and the vehicle capacity means you share the ice with several hundred other people on peak days. The ice itself is visually compelling: cracked and blue-green in deeper sections, with small meltwater streams running across the surface in summer. Whether this justifies the price is a subjective question.

The alternative, if you’re reasonably fit and have the right gear, is the walk. From the parking area near the glacier trail head, you can walk up the moraine ridge to the current glacier edge in about 40 minutes. Crampons or ice cleats are strongly recommended for any time you step off the moraine onto the glacier surface; the ice is not flat and it is slippery. Do not walk onto the glacier without spike attachments; the Columbia Icefields Centre at the top of the highway has rentals.

The Icefields Parkway

The context of visiting the glacier matters as much as the glacier itself. The Icefields Parkway runs 232 kilometres between Lake Louise and Jasper, and is one of the genuinely great mountain drives. The route passes over two continental divide crossings, by a succession of named peaks, and past Peyto Lake (the intensely turquoise lake visible from a viewpoint about 40 kilometres north of Lake Louise that appears on every Banff brochure). Set aside a full day to drive it rather than treating it as transport between destinations.

Wildlife sightings along the parkway are common: elk and bighorn sheep on the roadside are effectively guaranteed, bears require luck and timing (dawn and dusk), and wolves are present but almost never visible. Pull over immediately for any wildlife and give them space; the verge pullouts exist for this reason.

Staying and Eating

Jasper townsite is the largest settlement and has the best range of accommodation. The Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge on the lake just outside town is the famous luxury option; the town itself has a range of motels, hostels, and mid-range hotels. Book well ahead for July and August.

The Columbia Icefield Centre at the glacier has a cafeteria and visitor centre. The food there is functional but uninspiring. Jasper town’s restaurants are better for any meal that isn’t a quick lunch between activities.

What Most People Miss

Wilcox Pass, a 4.4-kilometre one-way trail that starts from a parking area on the east side of the highway about 2 kilometres south of the Icefield Centre, gives a view down onto the Athabasca Glacier from above rather than below. The walk takes about 2.5 hours return to the first viewpoint. On a clear morning, the glacier and the surrounding peaks reflect the light differently than from the valley floor, and the crowds are minimal. Bighorn sheep graze on the pass throughout the summer.

The best time to walk on or near the glacier is late June through mid-August when conditions are most stable. The glacier surface is passable without specialised gear on the main Ice Explorer route, but increasing crevasse activity in recent years means straying from designated areas is not advisable.