As we continued south on the Parkway, we came to Triangle Falls on the east side of the road. The falls are over 120 feet high are are easily accessible from a nice parking area on the opposite side of the road. I did a north-bound drive-by before we explored the cliffs:
Lyndi and I took turns climbing up for photos and then we went way up, handed our camera to a couple from Edmunton that we met on their way down and asked them to photograph us from the road. Luckily, they were trustworthy and we got some great pictures and our camera back when we got down off the falls:
We continued south to the main attraction of the Icefields, the Columbia Icefields. Athabasca Glacier has been retreating for decades and is now accessible by a hiking trail over the terminal moraine:
Here is the view from the top of the moraine, looking back to the east across the Parkway to the Icefield Centre:
In the very center of the that photo you can see the ZR-1 parked:
As we hiked up and over the valley floor and the moraine, the power of the glacier to shape the valley was clearly evident in scratches in the bedrock floor. Another 1/8 mile hike brought us to the toe of the glacier:
It is very hard to get a good picture of a glacier up close. The surface is very "dirty" with rock chips and dust, so it blends in with the terrain. We were not allowed to cross the melt streams along the front of the ice without a guided tour group. Standing there, looking up at the mass of ice that has shaped that valley for hundreds of thousands of years was awe inspiring.