WARMING UP TO GLACIER TREK
Icefields experience offers writer thrills and chills
Present. Peaceful. I didn’t expect to feel either of these while traversing the Wapta Ice Cap, high in the alpine, just west of the Icefields Parkway in Banff National Park. Any time I had mentioned I was going to hike across a glacier, friends and colleagues would jab with a version of, “Well, don’t fall in.”
To most, this would not be troubling at all, but I’m the type of person who watches shark attacks on YouTube the night before going to Hawaii, then refuses to go into the ocean.
Now, here I was at 4:30 p.m., close to the end of the first day of our adventure, trying to focus while our guide explained that we should step widely in our crampons, to be sure we didn’t catch our other leg with the grizzly-like steel claws now tightly secured to our boots. He warned we shouldn’t hit anyone else with them, either. While he was talking, I was multi-tasking, considering the sharpness of my ice axe — on both ends. He demonstrated the proper way to hold it, and how to move it quickly if we needed to do a self-arrest should one of us slip into a crevasse.
I started to practise super-fast, just like Walter White practised drawing his pistol in that episode of Breaking Bad.
“If you are right behind the person who falls in, expect to be pulled immediately to your stomach,” Jorg Wilz, owner of OnTop Mountaineering explained. “But we are fortunate to have a large group, so the others behind will brace and stop anyone else from falling.”
To say I was nervous would be a serious understatement. Over the years, I have listened in awe as my mountain-rescue friends shared horror stories about people disappearing on glaciers.
Our first day, we followed the shoreline of Bow Lake, leaving the main tourist trail to climb over a natural rock bridge. The hike, at six kilometres, led us up a boulderfilled canyon before spitting us out into a now verdant valley blanketed with wildflowers. Before I knew it, we got a glimpse of Bow Hut. From the valley below it looked alone as it rested upon its lonely ridge about 200 metres above us.
After dropping our gear in the hut, Jorg had us back outside for a harness check and one-more warning about the crampons. We roped up about 10 metres apart. My breathing was fast and I worked to slow it. As the rope spread out and became taut, I stepped in line behind Jorg and onto the glacier for the first time. My feet slid in the watermelon-snow, pink-tinted due to the algae that thrives in colder conditions. It was soft and because I was expecting scary ice with cracks in it, it wasn’t long before I was feeling more than comfortable in the quiet rhythm of my steps.
Before I knew it, we were off the glacier and climbing with no gear to the top of the Onion Skin. The evening light was crisp and the views were 360-degree. Standing atop that ridge, we boasted about being the luckiest people alive as an undeniable energy spread through our group.
We lingered longer than planned before heading back to the hut and to bed. We would awaken at 5 a.m. ( yes, on a Saturday morning) to take our best chance at beating the weather to Peyto Hut. If we were lucky, we would summit Mount Thompson or Rhonda — Jorg would make the call in the morning.
Our morning ascent back up the glacier was breathtaking. And although I still felt anxious, being roped together — 10 metres apart — puts you in a quiet and contemplative state. For two hours we walked this way. With the early morning light, everything looked magical.
To our east and west the sky was black and looking absolutely wicked, so Jorg decided we could summit Mount Thompson, as we could get down easily and to Peyto hut faster if we needed to. It was a good call.
Going into Day 3, I was feeling worse than I expected and it wasn’t from the lack of sleep. From Peyto hut, we could see the glacier’s crevasses where the snow had melted.
Once I reached the first crevasse, I held my breath, realizing — because the rope was already tightening — that I could not pause and panic over what I was about to do. I just had to keep moving, taking the crevasse crossing in stride. I made it, before immediately seeing another slim opening. The rest of the crossing went quickly as I was engrossed with the rhythm of my ice-cracking footsteps. When it was time to take off the ropes, I felt at odds, unready to be done with the glacier crossing.
As nervous as I had been, it was transformative experience. Being in that terrain, having time to be without thoughts about work, commitments or the future — with nothing to focus on but the pretty blue and grey tones in the ice and the sound of water rushing somewhere deep below — I stopped one final time. I turned back and looked at how far we’d come. Already feeling nostalgic.