Mount Revelstoke and Glacier National Parks

 

Wherein Moominmama visits a land of shrinking glaciers and brilliant wildflowers and meets another friendly marmot...

Behold the Meeting of the Waters, where the runoff from the Illecillewaet and Asulkan glaciers meet. Moominmama took a hike that originally led to the foot of the Illecillewaet Glacier, (pronounced ill-a-sihouette) an area that is now just a cascade of water. The glacier itself is out of view, having retreated almost a mile and about 2,000 feet vertically up the rock. 

Moominmama is not yet in the Canadian Rockies. It turns out these mountains west of the Rockies are called the Columbia Range, and Moominmama is staying in a section known as the Selkirks where Mount Revelstoke and Glacier National Park are located. This is one of the benefits of travel -- I've just discovered an entire mountain range between the Rockies and the Coastal Range that I never knew existed!

This year is the International Year of Glaciers' Preservation (per the United Nations), and Illicellewaet has been observed and documented since 1887. That year, the Vaux family of Philadelphia arrived as tourists and became fascinated by the glacier, starting the process of photographing and studying it as it receded. Mary, George and William Vaux pioneered the field of glaciology, returning again and again to document the changes to the glacier and the surrounding plant life, with the brothers publishing a scientific paper in 1898-99 on their findings.

The disappearing nature of the glaciers here is widely evident. While much of the landscape in North America was carved by glaciers, we see only the overgrown hills and valleys dotted with the occasional boulder. 

Here in the Selkirks, the upper elevations are full of moraines, grey bowls and ground-up rocks that make plain the recent retreat of the glaciers. All those beautiful roaring brooks are carrying what remains downhill, pale green waters of glacial silt.

The Columbia and Rocky Mountain glaciers may all be gone by the end of this century unless we reverse rising global temperatures, according to researchers in B.C.  Seeing the writing on the wall, this region has been a place to study the effects of glacial retreat and disappearance. 

The loss of glaciers with their regular summer meltwater means the rivers and lakes they supply get less freshwater in the spring and summer. The water grows warmer, affecting fish and other wildlife, not to mention our favorite swimming holes. Ultimately, it's our drinking water that will be affected.

Moominmama feels privileged to see these great beasts if only with binoculars this year. I will never tire of the pure glacial blues and ragged ice flows. 

Having had the chance to hike on glaciers in Alaska, I know their creaks and groans make them seem very much alive, and in fact, native people have always seen them as living and dangerous creatures.

This year has been a wet one for the Selkirks of British Columbia. Ironically, it was drier and warmer back on Vancouver Island near the temperate rainforests. But all this moisture and a few sunny days have led to a wildflower explosion. Mount Revelstoke is, in fact, known for its spectacular wildflower displays in mid-August.

The main road up the mountain is called Meadows in the Sky Parkway. The sides of the road and the hiking trails at the top are festooned in colorful blooms. 

Moominmama did one of her longer hikes, heading through flowering fields on Mount Revelstoke to see Miller and Eva lakes, with their blue-green waters surrounded by craggy rock. It was on my way back down that I met a pair of hoary marmots. 

They would have blended into the rock except that they couldn't keep still. Dashing about, they startled me on the trail. And when we both froze in place, I snapped a photo of one of them. This really is Moominmama's Year of the Marmots.

I leave you with a photo from Eva Lake, with clouds gathering overhead. I made it back before the rain started, but only just!