How We Visited Athabasca Glacier in 2022

Glaciers are incredible. I never saw them before visiting Athabasca, but how not to dream about them after a geology course in the university and plenty of books describing this slow but enormous power of Mother Earth? I'm pretty sure, in ancient times people thought they were cursed by gods. Why for this ice tongue could move to their villages freezing recently flourishing lands?
Glaciers are incredible! We rarely realize that the landscape we know is mostly shaped by glaciers. Valleys in Rockies? They are from Glaciers. Foothills? Eroded glacier sediments. Calgary area? The ancient glacier lake. Deep valley of the Bow river? Glacier gone and the land uplifted, so the water made a new path through... 
Do you still think that it's JUST a glacier?

Glaciers are incredible. Columbia Icefield gives birth to three rivers: Saskatchevan goes to Athlantic Ocean, Athabasca ends in Arctic Ocean while Columbia rivers vanishes somewhere in California, trying to get Pacific ocean. Can you imagine Canada and even without these rivers? It could happen faster than you think... 5 meters of ice melts every year. 300 meters is the depth of the glacier. Our grankids could never see them again.
I was very much wrong imagining glaciers. They should be flat and frozen, perfect for playing hockey, are not they? Imagine my surprise when saw a rough surface with numerous meter-height prolonged ridges and millions of water channels. Oh wow, glacier is melting in the summer! And during the day! The water flow was weak in 5 a.m. (don't ask me about that  haha) growing stronger with every hour. 

I also expected dangerous cracks and faults... Khm, why my colleague-glaciologist walked across the glacier in such a relaxed manner? Oh, it took me only one day to start running there without looking at the ice and jump from one channel bank to another. I even jumped over 50-cm fault going deeeep under the ground. At least this was much easier than I expected. Of course, it could be dangerous sometimes, but if the ice is not covered by snow, you have a good day (no bad luck) and avoid huge canyons and faults - everything would be ok (don't forget to talk to your doctor, psychoterapeut, and insurance company before going there).
My goal for two days in the glacier was simple. I helped the glaciologist to fly the drone over the glacier to get its first imagery. To do that, I was walking across the glacier with ground control points. 5 for one flight. Then get them back. 4 flights per day. 15 km on the ice. For two days. I visited every point at the glacier and it was one of the funniest and happiest experiences ever!

All days long we observed huge Brewster trucks riding to and fro. They were so friendly that let us ride those trucks with the equipment. The whole Brewster for 3 people, whooohooo! 
Trucks were extremely slow (which is quite obvious). 80% of the way they drove ideal gravel road which could be easily done in a random car except the hill. It was so steep that we had problems with walking there! Finally, Brewster crossed the glacier river (not too deep) and crawled by a snowy road for several minutes until it reached the parking lot at the glacier. 
Most tourists left it there and spent 20 minutes making photos with enourmous ice tongue. Braviest ones walked for couple of minutes from the parking lot to make even better photos (don't get me wrong, I'm a photomaniac, but it's never a priority!) Though, we've seen several guided groups walking up the glacier. I'm pretty sure it was a cool trip! 