Mount Edith

I journeyed up high into the Rockies to the base of Mount Edith Cavell yesterday, and was blown away by the Alpine landscape. From the end of the trail leading from the car park, you look a mile straight up at a wall of rock. It faces north, so retains snow the year round, but the snow constantly slides off the mountain in mini-avalanches, which you hear every few minutes. It's a very active landscape.

There are three glaciers on the mountain. Here's the largest, Angel glacier, named for the outstretched arms radiating away from the body. The arms are walls of ice poised on a precipice, while the body is an icefall tumbling down a steep slope. Water roars constantly from underneath the glacier in summer, and occasionally a chunk of ice breaks off from the snout of the glacier and tumbles down to the lakeshore below.

While ice from Angel glacier tumbles down to the lake at the base of Mount Edith, another glacier...Cavell...lies at the base adjacent to the lake. Ice from this glacier simply calves into the lake, forming icebergs...later in the summer than June 20...as you can see, the lake was still mostly frozen over when I took this picture.