The Trip

We recently got back from another trip out west. We went all over the Canadian Rockies visiting places including Glacier National Park, Banff, Jasper, and Vancouver. The trip lasted about two weeks and the best part, by far, was definitely the white water rafting in Banff. We rafted on the Kicking Horse River in southeastern British Columbia along rapids ranging from class two to five. We, of course, hiked in all of the National Parks, and stayed in some pretty cool hotels and resorts. I highly recommend the Jasper Lake Lodge and the Coeur d’Alene Resort in Idaho. This lake in Idaho surprisingly ended up being one of my favorite places as well. It was the cutest little town with great shopping! Vancouver also had a great shopping district! These northern locations tend to stay pretty cold all year long and there are many glaciers in the mountains. The Columbia Icefield is a well known group of glaciers in Jasper, and the largest icefield in the Rockies. The Athabasca Glacier is one of the six that make up the icefield, and you can actually walk on it. They have special cars that take people on the ice and we had the privilege of walking on the glacier. There are only 23 of these vehicles in the world, and the Columbia Icefield Adventures own 21 of them. The other two are in Antarctica for polar exploration and testing. The Athabasca Glacier, though, is full of its own interesting polar features.

The Glacier

When we were riding up the mountain, through the ice, I wondered why it looked dirty. The ice looked so much bluer from afar, but browner the closer we got. This vehicle took us to a part of the glacier safe to walk, not too easy though. Throughout the trip the tour guide mentioned tons of facts about the Athabasca Glacier, including what made it dirty in color. It’s called cryoconite, and overall not very beneficial for the glaciers. It is a powdery dust made of minerals and other small rocks, soot, and microbes (Baccolo). The darker color of the surface attracts more light and causes the glacier to melt faster (Baccolo). The accumulation of cryoconite increases the melting rate of the ice and lowers albedo (Baccolo). “Albedo is the fraction of light that a surface reflects. If it is all reflected, the albedo is equal to 1. If 30% is reflected, the albedo is 0.3” (“What Is”). I thought this was a good example that visibly displayed how albedo affects a surface, therefore, how cryoconite affects a surface. While cryoconite may have some positive aspects, the glaciers would be better off without it, and even last longer. It even looks prettier without it!

Works Cited

Baccolo, Giovanni. “Did You Know… the Surface of Melting Glaciers Is One of the Most Radioactive Places on Earth?” Cryospheric Sciences, 29 May 2020, blogs.egu.eu/divisions/cr/2020/05/29/did-you-know-the-surface-of-melting-glaciers-is-one-of-the-most-radioactive-places-on-earth/#:~:text=Due%20to%20its%20colour%2C%20it. Accessed 7 July 2024.

“What Is Albedo?” My NASA Data, 10 Aug. 2020, mynasadata.larc.nasa.gov/mini-lessonactivity/what-albedo#:~:text=Albedo%20is%20the%20fraction%20of.