Columbia Icefield

The Columbia Icefield, the most important of the icefields from which the parkway gets its name, is close on 130 km (80 mi.) north of Lake Louise. Covering a total area of 389 sq. km (150 sq. mi.), with the surrounding glaciers, it is the biggest continuous icefield in the Rockies. On the main field, the ice is 600 m to 900 m (2000 to 3000 ft) thick in places.

From the Columbia Icefield, which lies on the continental divide, several hanging glaciers flow down the mountain, their tongues stretching deep into the valleys.

Mount Snowdome (3520 m (11,553 ft)) is the very apex of Canada, from where the melted snow and ice flow into three different oceans, the Pacific to the west, the Beaufort Sea to the north through the Athabasca River and Mackenzie River, and hence the Arctic, and through the Saskatchewan River into Hudson Bay, and thence the Atlantic. The enormous icefield - its size can only be appreciated from the air - is a relic of the immense glaciation in the Rocky Mountains during the ice age which shaped the present topography of the area. Over the last 300 years the individual tongues of the Columbia Icefield glaciers have retreated considerably.