Andromeda and Athabasca
Letter from the Continental Divide
The view that lay before us in the evening light was one that does not often fall to the lot of modern mountaineers. A new world was spread at our feet: to the westward stretched a vast ice-field probably never before seen by the human eye, and surrounded by entirely unknown, unnamed and unclimbed peaks.
—J. N. CollieThe Columbia Icefield is the largest icefield in North America's Rocky Mountains, formed during the Great Glaciation (238,000 to 126,000 BCE). The icefield is a high point of a triple Continental Divide. Water flows to the east to the Atlantic Ocean, south and west to the Pacific Ocean, and north to the Arctic Ocean.
Engaging physically with geological time and planetary scale allows you to feel what I call cavalier amounts of time, sensorially. This has been my experience exploring glaciers in Canada, and through getting to know geologists and astronomers working near McDonald Observatory.
It makes intimate a striking point that these glaciers are rapidly melting. Some forecasts suggest the Athabasca Glacier will be gone within a generation. The loss of dark sky is another generational bifurcation —there are those who’ve seen stars and meteor showers and the Milky Way, and those who haven’t and probably never will.
Climbing in Mount Athabasca and Mount Andromeda are some of my early experiences in training (outdoor leadership training through Rocky Mountain Yamnuska) —moving through these spaces with small groups, safely, working together and trusting our equipment, and sharing active reflection each night of our extended expeditions.
We took off our watches so we couldn’t tell time. We couldn’t drink the ice water because it was too old.
Icefield in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, Alberta, Canada
Interpretive sign at Big Bend National Park Fossil Exhibit, Big Bend, Texas
Jeff Bullock
