It's hard to imagine being excited about donning a toque, mitts, long underwear and snowshoes during the longest days of summer. But this is exactly what the guests of Icefield Discovery are eager to do.
"This is so unique, so different than any place I've ever been," enthuses Konrad Portmann, a well-traveled Swiss businessman whose tour group of ten has journeyed to the lodge in the heart of Kluane National Park for three nights.
Portmann and his companions have flown up the Kaskawulsh Glacier and into the icefields on a perfect sunny day. As each of three planeloads of guests arrives, the dazed looks and absence of small talk speak volumes about their first impressions.
Lodge host and guide Sian Williams goes through the orientation after each trio of guests unloads. They'll have lots of time to revel in their surroundings, but first she has some important information they need to know.
"It's safe to walk on your own for five or ten minutes in any direction. Anything beyond that and we need to travel as a group," she advises.
Looking out from the lodge, the untrained eye sees only a vast expanse of snow. But beneath the surface lies a glacier, and glaciers can be riddled with crevasses. Icefields Discovery is located on a very stable bench of ice, but where the glacier slopes away the surface becomes strewn with cracks and depressions.
Williams also expects guests to be diligent with waste. Everything is flown out from the lodge, including human waste, so the group is instructed how to use special silver mylar pouches for trips to the outhouse. They're like gadgets you might find stowed on a space shuttle, but in this otherworldly landscape one feels somewhat akin to an astronaut.
The chance to sleep on ice a mile thick is just part of the appeal of visiting the icefields camp. Guests stay in comfortable domed bunkhouses clustered near the main lodge--a large Weatherhaven outfitted with running water, heaters, kitchen and dining tables.
But the main attraction is Mount Logan. Icefield Discovery sits between the Kaskawulsh and Hubbard Glaciers, in direct view of Logan's entire north face. Though the camp lies at 2,500 metres-compared to Logan's 5,959 metres-and at least forty kilometres away, the mountain is so commanding that when the air is clear and windless you feel like you could stroll over to its base.
In the calm pre-dawn hours of our second day, everyone woke and gathered together for the grandest of light shows. A hushed church-like reverence took hold of the group as the tip of Mount Logan turned a fiery pink. As we hopped from foot to foot to stay warm, rosy alpenglow descended the north face of Mount Logan and bathed surrounding peaks in warm light.
An eager fellow who bounded around with excitement, Portmann had set up with his camera away from the group. Calmly walking back to us after the sunrise, he had a look of pure contentment on his face. "It's a kind of religious experience, you think?" he wondered aloud.
That afternoon, we strapped on skis and snowshoes and set out across the ice to the Rookery, a nearby nunatak that rewards the effort with panoramic views of the icefields. Amidst a seemingly dead sea of ice, nunataks are like islands of life--rocky mountaintops that protrude through glaciers and harbour living things.
Williams pointed out asters, chickweed and clusters of bright yellow Kluane poppies, a subspecies found only in the park. Among the lichen-speckled rocks we found spiders and flies, and several times that day we spotted small groups of swallows navigating through the icefields. While holed up in the rocks for lunch, two in our group spied a hummingbird!
Watching weather becomes a constant pastime in the icefields. We'd awake to sunshine, be surrounded by fog, subjected to snowfall and buffeted with winds in the space of a few hours. But Portmann and his friends seemed game for anything--in a dense, swirling fog Williams set off with them to a new toboggan hill, flagging the route as they went. Another afternoon was consumed by building an igloo-a superb team effort greased with cold beer and gingerale.
In the expansive whiteness of the icefields, you lose your sense of proportion. Trudging for an hour feels no closer to your destination, yet companions in the distance become tiny dots. The incessant glare is exhausting and surreal--by day's end you retreat into the tents with a desire for darkness like you've never known before.
After being fogbound much of our third day--constantly guessing a break is coming at any moment--some of us decided to revisit the nearest hill after dinner. Fifteen minutes after leaving camp, we broke out of a dense bank of fog and into warm golden sunshine. Across the white plains of ice stood Mount Logan, a reassuring sight that--after sleeping beneath it for a few days--felt like seeing an old friend.
