The long weekend started early for me on Friday taking me up to Joffre Lakes Provincial Park, 190 kilometres from Vancouver and a long-haul drive through Sea-to-Sky Highway construction. But having the opportunity to stand beneath the shrinking Matier Glacier with the turquoise blue waters of Upper Joffre Lake below the cliff was worth it. The glacier is supposed to be a hanging glacier, meaning it reaches over the cliff edge. It doesn’t anymore, allowing the adventurous – if somewhat reckless – soul to hike up a rocky ridge then the smoothed mountainside to the base of the glacier.

Even now I’m having trouble finding the words to describe the emotions I felt standing up there, below something so ancient but now slowly dying.