The Athabasca Glacier, Alberta: Ice You Can Walk On

The markers along the road to the Athabasca Glacier tell you more about climate change than most museum exhibits. Wooden signs at intervals show where the glacier’s toe was in specific years: 1900, 1920, 1940, 1960, 1980, 2000, 2020. The retreating distance between each sign is larger than the previous interval. From the current glacier edge, the 1900 marker is over a kilometre back down the valley. The Columbia Icefield, which feeds the Athabasca and five other outlet glaciers, loses metres of thickness every year. You’re visiting a place that is actively disappearing, and the approach road makes that undeniable.

The Athabasca Glacier is the most accessible glacier in North America – accessible in the sense that a person with no mountaineering training can stand on it – and it sits directly alongside the Icefields Parkway (Highway 93) between Banff and Jasper, one of the genuinely spectacular drives in Canada. The Columbia Icefield Discovery Centre sits opposite the glacier terminus.

Tours and Access

Ice Explorer Tours are run on enormous purpose-built all-terrain vehicles with tires taller than most people, descending a steep terminal moraine to deposit visitors on the glacier surface for about 20 minutes. The experience costs around CAD $105 for adults. It is efficient, well-managed, and slightly staged – but it gets you standing on glacial ice without any physical preparation or specialist knowledge. You can drink from a small surface melt stream on the glacier. The view from the ice looking back up at the Parkway and the peaks above is worth the price.

If you want a more substantive experience, hire a guide for a glacier walking tour with crampons and ice axe. Several operators in Jasper (about 100 kilometres north) run half-day and full-day guided experiences that go significantly beyond the Ice Explorer zone, covering crevasse awareness, glacial movement, and the Columbia Icefield hydrology. You’ll work harder and understand considerably more of what you’re looking at.

Do not walk on the glacier independently without a guide. Crevasses are not identifiable from the surface and accidents happen regularly.

Parker Ridge Trail

The Parker Ridge Trail, about 10 kilometres north of the Discovery Centre on the Parkway, is a 5-kilometre return hike over open alpine terrain to a ridge with views across to the Saskatchewan Glacier (another Columbia Icefield outlet). The trail gains about 250 metres of elevation, takes around 2 hours return, and is significantly more rewarding than anything the Discovery Centre itself offers. Wildflowers in July are exceptional. The trail is exposed – bring layers regardless of the forecast.

The Icefields Parkway

The Parkway runs 232 kilometres between Lake Louise and Jasper, with the Athabasca Glacier roughly in the middle. Most visitors drive it in a day with stops. Two days with an overnight in the Columbia Icefield area or in Jasper lets you add Maligne Lake (one hour east of Jasper, with Spirit Island as the photographic centrepiece) and Parker Ridge properly.

Wildlife along the Parkway is reliable: elk are common and largely habituated to vehicles, bighorn sheep appear near the road regularly, bears (both black and grizzly) are possible. Follow Parks Canada food storage rules throughout the corridor.

Getting There and Staying

Fly to Edmonton or Calgary. Edmonton to Jasper is about 4 hours; Calgary to the glacier via Banff and the Icefields Parkway is about 3.5 hours. Parks Canada pass required: around CAD $22 per day per vehicle, or CAD $150 for an annual Jasper National Park pass.

Glacier View Lodge at the Discovery Centre is convenient and books quickly; reserve 6+ months ahead for peak summer. The Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge in Jasper is the grand option. Smaller motels and B&Bs in Jasper town offer better value than the Discovery Centre accommodation for visitors spending more than a night in the area.