Shrinking of the Athabasca Glacier

[Jeannieb43]

A few weeks ago I expressed on this board some grief because my memory was failing me. I tried to recall the name of a huge glacier which my DH and I had visited, climbing onto its surface after being ferried out to it by huge snow cats. Well, after listening to the TV reports of the Winter Olympics being broadcast from Canada this past week, I started to recall the circumstances.

We had driven across Canada about seven years ago from Vancouver to Jasper National Park, Banff and Lake Louise; and then returned by auto again to Vancouver. It was while driving on this east/west highway in British Columbia (I think it was) that we came upon this huge glacier. We stopped, read the information there posted about the history of the glacier, and checked out the photos of that ice field taken several years earlier. When compared with current photos, it was obvious that the entire ice field had shrunk substantially.

Today I found some of those pictures online. They're listed on Google as Athabasca Glacier, Columbia Ice Fields. I'll try to post a link here (though I'm not handy with this type of skill).

It's so obvious that the huge Columbia Ice Field has now shrunk to a small size compared with its previous ice field which covered many many acres.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=athabasca+glacier+canada&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=Y3aES7DaBI7uswOL3aSrDw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CCAQsAQwAwhttp://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=athabasca+glacier+canada&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=Y3aES7DaBI7uswOL3aSrDw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CCAQsAQwAwhttp://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=athabasca+glacier+canada&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=Y3aES7DaBI7uswOL3aSrDw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CCAQsAQwAw

[if this link doesn't work, it's possible to find these photos by Googling Athabasca Glacier, Columbia Ice Field.]

[Gail]

Yep- nice spot! Jasper, Alberta is one place where you share the sidewalks with the elk. If you're lucky it might even be a bear!

Have never actually be ON the ice fields, but have seen pics of the big tractors.

[phkrause]

Thanks for the info Jeannie. I saw a National Geographic documentary a little while ago and they showed some rather large pieces' of land in antartica that has stetally (sp) gotten smaller over the past 25 years or so. And some very large icebergs too that have shrunk quite abit over that same time period. They also showed some icebreakers that used to have a very hard time cutting through the ice around the Northpole, and how easy its been getting lately.

pk

[Nan]

Sammy and I visited the Columbia icefields a couple of years ago, and the buses or tractors or whatever are very impressive. Having an extremely deviant sense of humor, what I remember is that the number of stalls in the ladies' bathroom in the visitors' centre just about qualified for the Guiness Book of Records - 67 from memory!

[Nan]

I cannot seem to add pictures here, I will put a couple in one of the photo threads.

[Stan]

I just changed the code and this section should be able to ad photos etc now