We had a leisurely morning, with Boen and I walking over to the coffee shop to grab a breakfast that included meat pie, something that's not easily found in the USA. We started driving around 8:00am, since Google Maps told us it was going to take 1 hour 45 minutes to get there. We got there and got checked in with buses to the tranfers to the giant snow traversal machines. The glacier had retreated quite a bit since I was last on it in or around 1998. I had made the mistake of telling Bowen and Boen about how my brother stomped on the ice and fell in and of course Bowen had to proceed to doing the same thing.
20 minutes on the glacier was just long enough --- we saw other people bring water bottles to collect the glacier water to drink, but I'd forgotten to do that. We'd bought the skywalk package and so the bus immediately took us to the skywalk afterwards, but not before we spotted a marmot while waiting for the bus. This time I had the long lens with me and could fire off a few shots.
To be honest the skywalk is a bit of a tourist trap. It's a nice piece of structure but hardly anything worth writing home about. The kids were ready to leave after 15 minutes and we took the bus back and had lunch at the overpriced cafetaria. I made use of the wifi to checkin to our flight the next morning and discovered that you could make an appointment to navigate the security line as well, and so did that as well.
One last look at the Athabasca glacier and we were off, driving another 3 hours back in time to get onto the Moraine lake shuttle. The shuttle was a surprisingly involved process, having to drive to the park and ride and then getting onto the shuttle itself after checking in. I'd forgotten how long a drive it was to Moraine Lake, and when we got there the parking lot was pretty empty.
The kids were cranky, a sign that they were tired of hiking. We talked them into walking to the end of the lake, with detours to play with objects that were floating or half in the lake and the gorgeous bluish tint of the lake.
When it was time to go back we stood inline with a wedding photographer from Canmore --- he told us he did alot of weddings at Lake Moraine, but he was stuck on the shuttle like we were! He said some wedding parties provided a private shuttle but others don't. He also said he didn't mind take a private shuttle.
We had a long slow dinner at the hotel's diner, and I did one last batch of laundry, hoping I wouldn't have to do more laundry for the rest of the trip.
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