University of Wyoming Nordic Ski Team: Saving Landscapes: Experiencing the Icefields Parkway by bike and foot

The fluorescent lights of the campground bathroom seem assaulting at six o’clock in the morning but the brightness brings out the colors in the wings of the moth that sits trapped in a puddle of water on the counter. Beautiful modeling of greys, blues, greens, yellows and oranges form a mosaic that captures my attention and, perhaps because I am tired, I see, in micro version the landscape of the Canadian Rockies. For six days we have peddled and hiked our way from Banff, through Lake Louise and across the Icefields parkway, to Jasper.

Graced with beautiful weather, my hands look tan against the white sink as I wash my face and brush my teeth. Six days away from Internet and text, I feel a stillness in my core that is rare and welcome. A pulse from the corner of my eye draws my attention and I realize that the moth is still alive. Again, I am taken, as if in a vortex, into the landscape of its tiny wings. I see, in the grey greens, the tall, majestic peeks of the Parkway. Unlike our own Colorado and Wyoming Rocky Mountains, the craggy peaks of Northern counterpart seem untouchable, almost frightening in their grandeur.

Only three days ago we arrived at the Columbia Icefield and while preparing to walk to Athabasca glacier, we spoke with a native Albertan whom was ironically clad in a short-sleeved Hawaiian T-shirt. He boasted about the Canadian Rockies and said he liked them much better than the Colorado Rockies. While it seems impossible to compare such desperate beauties, his commentary caused me some introspective, contrasting thought. Perhaps, I conclude, the Colorado Rockies are neither as grand nor as impressive as those of the Parkway, but the biodiversity of Colorado and Wyoming seems to easily surpass these scarce, silent lands.

Athabasca Glacier

When we finally deensconsed from the Albertan’s musings, we walked, first in silence, from the parking lot to the Glacier. Becca breaks the silence when she laughs and says, “Maybe six and a half hours of uphill peddling made my legs just a little tired.” The day before we had done what may have been the hardest ride of my life. After completing forty miles of gradual uphill, we had climbed steeply for two and half hours.

Half way up the CLIMB!
Sunwapta Pass

My metabolism continually licked at the anaerobic threshold for the full climb just as the roaring tour buses licked against our left shoulders threatening to force us from the road. Christi and I giggle and tired legs and our laughs combine with the wind on the glacier to reminding us of our connectedness with this barren landscape.

With each step we pass rings of glacial recession. Shortly after the dirt road had excited from the highway we had biked past years labeled 1925, 1952, 1962…. Now, as we walk, we pass a 1972 sign, then 1982; we see, perhaps, the rawest, most visible evidence of climate change. Christi reminseces that this was the year that she first visited the park. A sign attests to the impacts of global warming on the Athabasca glacier that is, quite literally, slipping away. Sad, my glance, sinks to the rocks below where glaciation has left scars on the land. The scratches, such visible evidence of the constant dynamic breathing and shifting of the glacier. I am reminded of graffiti as the markings seem as violent in nature and as representative of a marginalized structure, defeated, but clinging to life.

Glacial Scouring

My eyes, beginning to adjust to the fluorescent lights of the campground bathroom, have now appropriately been transfixed by the blue-greens on the moth’s modeled wings. Freed by the violent etchings of the glacier’s recession, is the silt that runs downstream forming, what to me is the most beautiful feature of the Parkway, the glacial lakes.

Tangled Falls

Our first day of biking was interrupted by trickling streams and, when we crested a particularly steep climb, we were met by the view of Bow lake. Nearly glowing aquamarine, the blues mixed with the greens more pleasingly than any gemstone. Awestruck, we had pulled our bikes into the overview parking lot where at least fifty motorists, cars idling had their heads sticking out of their RVs. Quickly we were accosted by two Chinese men traveling in a Hummer Jeep; they wore leather and bandanas and with an SLR, they chased us through the parking lot exclaiming, “One, Two, Three” as they shot one picture after another. Though for a moment we felt like three famous female warriors being chased by the paparozi, the feeling quickly faded when we saw the idling Hummer engine.

Bow Lake

Each night, once tucked safely in our tents, Christi’s was reading to us from Al Gore’s book, Our Choice. “Carbon dioxide produced in the burning of these fossil fuels accounts for the single largest amount of the air pollution responsible for climate change.” (Chapter 1). Between the parking lot of idling RVs, Hummers and rental cars, I suddenly felt trapped in the juxtapose between the rising water levels of the glacial lake and the very emission of the greenhouse gases causing the melt.

The moth’s body heaves slowly once again and my attention is brought, only briefly, back to present. The creamy whites in the micro-landscape quickly take me back to the wide glacial U-shaped Valley where the Sunwapta River follows a braided path.

Braided Sunwapta River

After cresting the second of two mountain passes - Bow Pass is followed by Suwapta pass – we had ridden, knuckles white towards the north, Athabasca Glacier growing smaller behind us with each roll of our wheel. The steep grade had finally moderated and a wide shoulder had opened. The sun sparkled across the white glacial silt and it seemed that we were lifted on its rays as we spun along with the rippling water. Becca would later dup this Zen Riding.

With the warmth of this memory, I realize that the deep yellows on the moths wings contrast with the assaulting fluorescence of the lights but they are reminiscent of the sun during our last night at camp. After five and a half hours of more Zen Riding than the day before, we had camped at Honeymoon Lake. Elated by the fact that this campground name literally meant that there was (as the Canadians would say), “a proper swimming lake”, Christi literally bounded off of her bike directly into to the lake. We had swum for nearly a mile, finding the view from the middle of the lake to be most pleasing. In honor of the ski team slogan “Stoked 365”, we dubbed this view, “Stoked 360 (degrees, that is)”. For, to the East were the Flatirons called “The Endless Chain”.

Honeymoon Lake and the Endless Chain

To the South, we could still make out the Columbia Icefield and to the West and North, craggy peaks jutted above the trees. Our swim was topped off by an incredible spaghetti dinner (Christi’s homemade sauce). As we sat at the picnic table, the sun began to set and I felt warm and peaceful. But I also felt something else, something I had never felt so strongly before. It was as though I was connected to the sun, and as it shone through the trees, I was connected to them too. It was- at the risk of insinuating that I had simply spent too much time with our Dr. Bronner’s soap - as though we were all one. On the nights that our moods shifted away from the analytical writing of Al Gore, we had read The Four Agreements but Don Miguel Ruiz. Perhaps his words explain best what I was feeling, “What you will see is love coming out of the trees, love coming out of the sky, love coming out of the light. You will perceive love from everything around you. This is the state of bliss. You perceive love directly from everything, including yourself and other humans. Even when humans are sad or angry, behind these feelings you can see that they are also sending love.” (p. 124).

Becca in Bliss

With this I take the flat end of my Tom’s Whitening toothpaste and gingerly set it down next to the trapped moth. As though it was waiting for this very escape it moves its antennae and then steps on leg quickly after another onto the dry safety of the toothpaste tube. As it leaves behind its watery grave, I wonder if it is through love, love of the earth, love of each other, love of everything that we will escape what seems to be the inevitable watery grave of climate change.