Athabasca Glacier

"Take a Walk on a Glacier A fun stop if you're driving the Icefields Parkway through the Canadian Rockies. You join a group and climb aboard these huge custom-made vehicles (the wheels alone are probably six feet tall) that take you up onto a glacier. You get great views and you can scoop up glacier water to drink. It's not strenuous—you just get out and walk around on the snow and ice for a while—but it is cold and windy. It gives you an appreciation of the landscape-shaping power of glaciers. And of ginormous truck-transporter-vehicle things."

"The Columbia Icefield is one of the largest masses of ice south of the Arctic Circle, an otherworldly expanse straddling the Continental Divide. You can get on the ice in two ways: Take the Brewster tour company's Ice Explorer snow coach (a massive four-wheel-drive vehicle), or climb the toe of the glacier with Athabasca Glacier Icewalks, a company specializing in half-day and full-day strolls toward the perfect photo op. The trek over the ice is easy enough for most families to do, and the sensation of gliding on top of a glacier borders on the spiritual. Get lucky, and your guide will let you check out a glacier crevasse up close."

Top Attractions in Banff and Jasper National Parks

"Dancing on a Glacier Standing on the white-blue ancient ice of the Athabasca Glacier in Alberta , Canada , fulfilled a lifelong dream I never knew I had. The Athabasca Glacier, a tongue of ice 6 kilometers long and one kilometer wide, is part of the Columbia Icefields, located at the Continental Divide. While doing my second artist residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Banff National Park, I felt compelled to take an excursion up to the Icefields. Last year, I had come across the tour brochure and rejected it outright, but the idea had stayed with me: I could be an ice explorer. Me! I've been known to say, "I hate snow." I don't like to be cold; therefore, walking on infinite layers of ice didn't seem like me. When my tour group arrived at the base of the Athabasca Glacier, we got into a massive bus that took us down a sheer incline and out onto the ice. It felt like we were on the surface of the moon. The crevices and craters revealed wild streaks of electric blue. I filled my water bottle with water from the gurgling stream. Crisp. It tasted like crispness. The ice on the glacier is said to be as deep as the Eiffel Tower is high, and I was on top of it all. I danced with joy; I danced with gratitude; I danced because I felt like dancing. This could be you. You can drive to the Columbia Icefields, where you can buy a ticket for admission. My tour was through Explore Rockies. By Wsl"