Columbia Icefield (Canadian Rockies)
Hi Steemians !
Nestled between the peaks of Mount Columbia and and Mount Athabasca, along the Alberta and British-Columbia border lies another of our great iconic Canadian landscape, the Columbia Icefield. Formed during the great glaciation period (238,000-126,000 bc) covers over 300 square kilometers of ice terrain and can reach a dept of up to 440 meters in it's deepest glaciers. Columbia Icefield contains several glaciers including the popular tourist attractions of Athabasca, Saskatchewan and Dome glaciers.
shot 1/125 sec. f/5.6 48mm , ISO 200
The cluster of glaciers receives about 7 meters of snowfall every winter and recedes during the summer months supplying much of the prairies and western Canada with a fresh water supply via the Saskatchewan river, Athabasca river and the Great Slave Lake river to eventually end up in 3 separate oceans, the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic ocean respectively . This phenomenon is called the hydro graphic apex of North-America. The only other discovered comparable phenomenon is located in Siberia.
shot 1/500 sec. f/5.6 98mm , ISO 320
Located both in Banff and Jasper National parks, this gem is hard to access in the winter months because of icy and snowy mountain pass ( doesn't stop us any hehe) The Athabasca glacier is the easiest to get to and can be seen and accessed via the icefield parkway ( the highway). It is open for self guided hikes, much of it remains behind barriers because as the glacier recedes it covers the crevasse filled glaciers with a layer of sediment deposits covering also called till making it hard to distinguish from solid ground to glacier. All other glaciers must be accessed on guided tours aboard a snow coach from spring(may) to mid fall (october).
shot 1/500 sec. f/5.6 85mm , ISO 320
The pictures above are taken mid fall, in the summer it offers a barren landscape as it continues to recede. There hasn't been any growth to the glaciers since the mid 1800's . The glaciers have since receded over one and a half kilometer. The first 2 pictures represent 2 types of glacier formations, the ice fields( long shelf) and ice caps at the bottom of the pictures (dome shaped).
view of lateral mauraines and probably the most popular photograph view due to ease of access
Mauraines are the till deposited by the glacial streams during the melting season forming ridges or extensions of the mountain sides(lateral mauraine) . They are not permanent and can be demolished in the event the glacier begins to grow pass the natural barrier. The terminal mauraine is the ridge that forms at the very end of the glacier marking it's furthest extensions and commonly used by scientist and geologist to study the glacier's recession over large time periods.
partial view of the terminal mauraine
The picture above depicts how far the glacier used to reach about a century and a half ago at it's peak size now the terminal mauraine must be climbed in order to access where the glacier receded to( about a 15-20 min climb).
ice cave in formation
The picture above is a perfect representation as to why it his important to stay withing the indicated barriers, under the till sits more of the glacier and is hard to distinguish crevasses that may be hidden under the mauraine. I have the appropriate photo equipment to take close ups without getting myself in a danger zone. Many people have been injured while taking unnecessary risks and not respecting the boundaries set by proper officials.
the small rock structure is called Inukshuk (manmade)
I never had the chance to go on the glacier coach tour yet, it is in my future plans, given the proximity of the Rockies (about 4 hours drive from home) I get to go often enough to thoroughly explore different areas and part take in different activities every time I visit. Given the tourist hot spots, the guided tours and similar activities are very pricey so I stick to one big ticket tour/activity per trip and do self tours and hikes for the rest of the journey. I highly recommend visiting if you ever take a trip to the Rockies but this is a disappearing landscape due to global warming so time is of the essence.
what are your thoughts on global warming? is it : A natural phenomenon due to happen regardless of human activity? Is it caused by our actions and industrialization? do you think it's nothing but a hoax? Maybe you just never given it any thought at all?
All photos were taken with Nikon D7000 with various Nikkor and Sigma lenses ranging from 10mm to 300 mm. I do not have specs for some of the pictures lost on my fried hard drive as I had to retrieve them from my personal facebook account.
I hope you enjoyed the virtual tour!
until next time, cheers! xox
A very good post @ladybug146, thanks a lot for sharing!
I've also been posting an awful lot about the Canadian Rockies, including some shots of the area where you were there, and have the feeling you might also enjoy some of these posts.
I really enjoyed the information that documented the area as well as your camera work. Namaste :)
merci Eric, tres gentil !! I will go check them out for sure :)
Great pictures and certainly enjoyed this splendid virtual tour :)
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climate change is a natural process, ice ages ect have been around before, but i think humans may have sped it up..cool photos btw
thank you! I'm thinking on similar lines, a mix of both, it's definitely real and partly natural , the bigger question is how much are we contributing. thanks for your insight.
yea for sure, i dunno the whole thing could be bullshit tho. They are always goin on about co2 blah blah co2 this that , what the fuck are the facts , we only believe what they say considering 0.04% of the atmosphere is co2 how can such a little amount have such a big impact, you kno what im saying..
well, if you look on national geographic or nasa, they developed an infrared tech to watch a time lapsed co2 patterns thru-out the year and the locations from space, if you can find it. it gives a good picture, when the temps rise in the summer , the co2 dissipate and moves towards the north and kind of lingers in the colder months when the forests are deemed "dormant" . Deforestation in south america also seems to affect it . wet lands also seem to absorb greater quantities. Maybe protecting wetlands and forested area could be the key. So far here it's a big tax grab, there is carbon tax on top of carbon tax .
nasa could spit anything out tho in cgi and people would soak it up.. I just dont see how 0.04% would have such a great impact , but maybe it does, so many things ive learned tho have turned out to be false or the complete opposite, its like when the Gov says war on te..rr.or but really they are the ones funding rebels ect.. wouldnt surprise me if it is real but im keeping a open mind.. i kno the climate does have cycles and imn sure we contribute, but to the amount they say is debateable..
I definitely see what you are saying, ppl buy anything mainstream spits out. I have always made my own opinions based on my own research and info presented and time and time again been eventually proven right even if I was against the grain. I work oil and energy sector so I have a different understanding than most, it's not the production of it that is nasty, it's the over consumption of overly packaged goods and the disposable junk that I think is making it worse and could potentially speed it up. As you said tho, lots of the data is debatable and yes we are coming out of an ice age so natural climate change is a given. and all the bandwagon ppl def need to get their facts strait. Fighting pipelines and installing bird blenders will not solve anything. I'm not a scientist so i'm not sure what 0.04% actually does. The same families who are funding rebels also the same ones that have been funding both sides of wars since napoleon. It's all about greed and control of resources, It's nothing but a game to them. I have traced some of the money and some of it comes from certain "charitable organizations" and yes much of it is funded by various governments.
yea i think things should be made out of biodegradable stuff to b h, it could easly be done, and yea people believe anything if the news says so , without ever questioning.. But yea , i dunno how i feel about oil, pretty big money grab personally i would like to see solar , and batterys made out of hemp, or even run cars on hempoil, henery ford built a complete car out of hemp lol.. But yea ino what your talking bout , rothschi!ds ect.. thats were i think crypto can come in and help, more economics away from worthless fiat,.
solar if your area can support it, It would work great in the summer here, but the winter, where I live the shortest days have like 5 hrs of sunlight, and the more north you go, the shorter days get. hard to get solar power with limited sun . It gets like -60 celcius at times. Heat is a must. Oil is def a cash grab and hemp could replace a lot of it, at least enough to help the situation. fiat will crash and burn at some point.
If you have time , google court case chinese vs usa and gold and when the payment was due and where the gold and paperwork was stored. It might be eye opening. I assure you as somebody who melts metal for living and have schooling in such, jet fuel does not have enough btu to melt giant beams.
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STOPThe GW is caused by our actions and industrialization, that's for sure. Nice blog and those are really beautiful images you shot.
thank you. how do we convince the population. Hard to ignore when a landscape changes this much in such a short time. Thank you for your insight.
Well if our governments and the system they create for us including the media dumbing down the majority of the folks stops, then you might have a chance to convince the population, which I don't see happening right now. :/
neighther do I, ppl need to stop consuming like glutons as a whole. Not saying lets all go back to the dark ages, but we can do without a few things. The media is owned by the giant corporations selling too much junk.
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thank you for viewing!
Hills yeah!
Great photos. What a landscape for a hike.
Thank you!! The Rockies are so grandiose there is amazing hikes of all kinds. Pictures still don't do them justice.
I haven't been that north in the Rockies. As far as Colorado and Utah.
I have never made it to the USA Rockies yet, certainly on my bucket list tho!
Great pictures of the Columbia Icefields! Our record keeping for temperatures are only about 200 years old and who's to say that they started keeping track during the beginning of a warming period? We were all taught in school about the ice ages so obviously that would mean in turn that our planet does go through periods of temperature swings. Even if mankind were able to influence our entire planet enough to make global warming possible all it would do is make our planet too warm for us to inhabit. After that the Earth would just restore itself to it's own natural warming and cooling cycles.
thank you. Great points, I do think the earth would just get rid of us to restore itself if it needed too, I prefer it doesn't come to that and it's not to late to make changes as a whole. thank you for your insight!