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Columbia Icefield tourist information
Columbia Icefield tourist information
The Columbia Icefield is about 325 square kilometers in area and is the largest region of ice and snow south of the Arctic Circle. Melting snow and ice feed rivers that drain into the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Arctic Oceans. This makes that point, the summit of Snow Dome, one of only 2 hydrologic apexes in North America. There are 8 glaciers making up the Icefield but only three can be seen from the Icefield Parkway.
The area can get as much as much as 10 meters (33 ft) of snow each year. A warming climate and less snow each winter has seen all of the Icefield's glaciers retreat over the past century.
The average elevation of the Icefield is about 3000 meters with Mt Columbia being the highest point (and the highest point in Alberta) at 3747 meters (about 12,300 ft). Unfortunately, this peak can't be seen from the highway although you can get a glimpse of it from Mt Wilcox, a moderate hike and scramble in the area.
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Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Columbia Icefield - updated May 2024
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Columbia Icefield Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.