The Columbia Icefield straddles 325 km of the great divide separating British Columbia from Alberta.

Pictured here is the ice descending the Athabasca Glacier from the Columbia Icefield as it falls over a series of three spectacular cliff faces, causing the tumbling ice to shatter and fracture into an awesome icefield. The vertical distance from the top of the first ice fall to where the glacier finally flattens out about 1,000 meters.

There are markers along the road to the terminus of the Athabasca Glacier which indicate the location of the snout in recent years. Since 1908 there has been rapid accelerated recession of the glacier. Even though what happens at the Columbia Icefield depends upon local and micro-climactic conditions, this large ice mass is not immune to the influences of planetary climactic changes.

Excerpts from Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritages Sites by Robert William Sandford 2010