Leaving Banff

Tuesday 18th Aug 2009 Up well before dawn to see Venus and a very old crescent moon hanging in the gathering light of dawn. A spectacular sight over forest. Hit the road and by the time I got to the Athabasca glacier (only about half an hour later) the sky was clouding in. In the grey light I was the first in the glacier car park. Flight conditions were near perfect. The short walk up to the glacier was made more fun by the 1980 marker (about the last time I stood here) some 300m short of the present end of the glacier. Flight went well, very well. The glacier was big and open, and bar crashing on the glacier there was little that you could do wrong, although it was clear from my shortness of breath that this place was quite high. Landing was sloppy given the excellent conditions. Headed back to the Wilcox pass trailhead (it was originally the plan to do this first, but the glacier was just too much of a target of opportunity). I had bumped into some guy at Lake Louise the day before who had given the trail rave reviews as the hike to put all other hikes to shame. On the trail by 8.30, that put me at the second person on the trail. The hike was steep in the trees to begin with, and the weather cool, and increasing gloomy as the cloud cover increased. After only about half an hour I had cleared the trees and there were excellent views of the icefields opposite. However as I neared the top of the pass this was largely obscured by hills in the foreground. On what I assumed …