Columbia Icefield

It sprawls on the Great Continental Divide in both Banff and Jasper National Parks. One of the tongue, the Athabasca Glacier (image on the right below), flows down between 3450m/11,319 ft Mt. Andromeda and 3520m/11,546 ft Snow Dome. A century ago the glacier's snout pushed as far as the highway. On the eastern slopes of the Icefield, the heavy winds sweep the snow off the important winter range for bighorn sheep.

Lake Louise - Banff

Lake Louise sits in a hanging valley above the Bow valley, one of several scooped out of the Bow Range by the huge glaciers that flowed down from the Great Continental Divide in the past ice ages.

Castle Mountain - Jasper

Geologists see it as a slice of limestone and quartzite layer cake, sheared thin by Ice Age Glaciers on both sides.