Ice Hoodoos

Provided by: John Adam
Summary Author and Editor: John Adam, Stu Witmer

A trail around the base of Mt. Edith Cavell, in Jasper National Park, Canada, leads to the glacier you see in the background of this picture. High and to the right out of the frame of this shot is Angel Glacier. In the foreground of this photo are what I call ice hoodoos because of their similarity to their rocky cousins in Bryce Canyon, Utah and other locations. I presume that these have formed as a result of a large fall of ice from the glacier. An unwitting photographer on the left helps to provide scale. As we surveyed the vista around us, we heard a cracking sound, followed by what seemed like thunder. It was, in fact, a small avalanche manifested at that distance as almost visually indistinguishable from a slim mountain waterfall, except that it was ice that was falling! Edith Cavell was an English nurse who was executed in World War I for assisting Allied soldiers and other refugees to escape from German occupied Belgium where she headed a Red Cross hospital. Her heroism has been honored in many ways including the naming of Mount Edith Cavell in Jasper National Park. Photo taken in late June, 2008.