Athabasca Glacier
A year ago today we stopped along the Icefields Parkway to see the Athabasca Glacier in Jasper National Park, Alberta.
Plenty of ice and snow remained on the adjacent mountains as well, even at this warmest time of the year.
Below is a mostly downward look at how the moving Athabasca Glacier once scratched its way across a level expanse of upturned rock strata.
Near the scratched rocks I saw some low, fluffy mounds of what I take to be a species of Dryas, likely D. drummondii or D. octopetala. I learned that Dryas is in the rose family, and its seed heads are akin to those of its family mate Fallugia paradoxa, known as Apache plume.
© 2018 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 
Wow. Love the scarifications. Had never seen them depicted in just this way.
Pairodox Farm
September 6, 2018 at 6:14 AM
I’d never seen anything like it, either, with so many parallel scratches at a right angle to so many parallel strata.
Steve Schwartzman
September 6, 2018 at 8:08 AM
Boy that picture of the scarred rock is memorable – – looks like that glacier retreated reluctantly, hanging on by its nails.
Robert Parker
September 6, 2018 at 8:02 AM
Ah, personification strikes again. Speaking of retreat, as we walked along the path from the parking lot up to the ice, we passed signs in reverse chronological order telling the year in which the glacier had extended as far as each sign. They made clear how much the glacier had melted over the last century or so. You can see an example at
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/athabasca-glacier-receding-rapidly-ashley-cooper.html
Steve Schwartzman
September 6, 2018 at 8:18 AM
Oh wow! That scarred rock is outstanding. And how unusual are those “fluffy mounds”! You’ve captured some great shots of oddities with (to me) superlative beauty.
Littlesundog
September 6, 2018 at 8:55 AM
The scratched rock has clearly grabbed people’s attention. I’d never seen anything like it, though I don’t know if it’s a familiar site to people who have a lot to do with glaciers. I saw and also photographed other glacial scratching in the area, but the example I showed in this post was the most striking.
Steve Schwartzman
September 6, 2018 at 10:27 AM
As for the low plants, I saw them in plenty of places in the Canadian Rockies. I showed another bunch at the beginning of the year:
https://portraitsofwildflowers.wordpress.com/2018/01/05/colonizing/
What made the ones in today’s picture different is how rounded the clumps were. One hypothesis is that the plants may have been growing in slight depressions that retained more moisture than the ground surrounding them.
Steve Schwartzman
September 6, 2018 at 10:42 AM
A carpet of ‘roses’ may one day replace the glacier. That would be an interesting sight, though I expect such a scenario is not possible outside my imagination.
Gallivanta
September 7, 2018 at 5:54 AM
Because I saw only the feathery stage, I didn’t know how much the flowers resemble typical roses. I looked that up just now, so you can see what you think:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dryas_octopetala
Imagination, go to work.
Steve Schwartzman
September 7, 2018 at 8:22 AM
My imagination is working overtime.
Gallivanta
September 7, 2018 at 10:10 PM
I hope it’s getting paid time and a half for the extra labor.
Steve Schwartzman
September 7, 2018 at 10:18 PM
Hope so!
Gallivanta
September 7, 2018 at 10:24 PM
It’s fascinating how closely the seed heads of the Dryas resemble those of Clematis drummondii, at least from a distance. As for a rose-like appearance, the D. octopetala certainly looks like our invasive Macartney rose. If it has the same habits, Gallivanta could have her carpet of roses.
The scratched rock looks remarkably like a loosely-woven cloth: burlap, perhaps. I’m as interested in the base rock as the scratches. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s good that you included some of the surrounding gravel, too. The colors of the ‘sheet rock’ are easy to pick out even in the bits and pieces. (And wouldn’t that rock make a great accent wall in a home, assuming it would be feasible.)
shoreacres
September 7, 2018 at 9:10 PM
Sometimes in retrospect I’ve wished I’d taken a broader shot of something to include more of the context. Even when I was still at the scratched strata I wanted to do that but couldn’t. I’d have to have been a lot taller or had a freestanding ladder with me to be able to get farther away and still keep aiming mostly downward to keep everything in focus. I did what I could and took the picture at the widest aperture available to me, 24mm. (I have a zoom lens that goes to 16mm but didn’t bring it along on the trip.)
When I first saw the fluff of Apache plume some years ago I thought immediately of Clematis drummondii, and I had a similar reaction with the Dryas, just as you did. As for the flowers, I saw some pretty roses at Acadia National Park but I suspected they weren’t native; I was right.
Steve Schwartzman
September 8, 2018 at 6:32 AM
The force of the weight the glacier presses against that rock makes for some interesting patterns. Cool stuff.
Steve Gingold
September 8, 2018 at 4:35 AM
And in a very cool part of the continent, climate-wise. I’ve read that some glaciers were a mile thick, so you can imagine the force they exerted.
Steve Schwartzman
September 8, 2018 at 6:20 AM