Nigel Peak is a mountain summit located on the shared border of

Banff National Park Banff National Park is Canada's oldest National Parks of Canada, national park, established in 1885 as Rocky Mountains Park. Located in Alberta's Rockies, Alberta's Rocky Mountains, west of Calgary, Banff encompasses of mountainous terrain, wi ...

and

Jasper National Park Jasper National Park is a national park in Alberta, Canada. It is the largest national park within Alberta's Rocky Mountains spanning . It was established as a national park in 1930 and declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. Its locatio ...

, in the

Canadian Rockies The Canadian Rockies (french: Rocheuses canadiennes) or Canadian Rocky Mountains, comprising both the Alberta Rockies and the British Columbian Rockies, is the Canadian segment of the North American Rocky Mountains. It is the easternmost part ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

, Canada. Nigel has two peaks, the north summit is the highest point. The nearest higher peak is

Mount Athabasca Mount Athabasca is located in the Columbia Icefield of Jasper National Park in Canada. The mountain was named in 1898 by J. Norman Collie, who made the first ascent on August 18 of that year. Athabasca is the Cree language name for "where there ...

, to the south-southwest. Nigel Peak is situated immediately north of

Sunwapta Pass Sunwapta Pass (2,035 m/6,677 ft)Jasper National Park of Canada
...

and can be seen from the

Icefields Parkway Highway 93 is a north–south highway in Alberta, Canada. It is also known as the Banff-Windermere Parkway south of the Trans-Canada Highway ( Highway 1) and the Icefields Parkway north of the Trans-Canada Highway. It travels through ...

and from

Athabasca Glacier The Athabasca Glacier is one of the six principal 'toes' of the Columbia Icefield, located in the Canadian Rockies. The glacier currently loses depth at a rate of about per year and has receded more than and lost over half of its volume in ...

Topographic relief Terrain or relief (also topographical relief) involves the vertical and horizontal dimensions of land surface. The term bathymetry is used to describe underwater relief, while hypsometry studies terrain relative to sea level. The Latin word ...

is significant as the summit rises 1,100 meters (3,610 feet) above the parkway in two kilometers (1.2 mile). __NOTOC__

History

Nigel Vavasour was a packer who accompanied

J. Norman Collie Professor John Norman Collie FRSE FRS (10 September 1859 – 1 November 1942), commonly referred to as J. Norman Collie, was an English scientist, mountaineer and explorer. Life and work He was born in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, the second of ...

and Hugh Stutfield to the Columbia Icefield area in 1897. The mountain was named by the mountaineers during an 1898 sheep hunt with Nigel. The mountain's toponym was officially adopted March 5, 1935, by the

Geographical Names Board of Canada The Geographical Names Board of Canada (GNBC) is a national committee with a secretariat in Natural Resources Canada, part of the Government of Canada, which authorizes the names used and name changes on official federal government maps of Canada ...

. The

first ascent In mountaineering, a first ascent (abbreviated to FA in guide books) is the first successful, documented attainment of the top of a mountain or the first to follow a particular climbing route. First mountain ascents are notable because they en ...

of the mountain was made in 1919 by the Interprovincial Boundary Commission.

Geology

Like other mountains in Banff Park, Nigel Peak is composed of

sedimentary rock Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic particles at Earth's surface, followed by cementation. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause these particles ...

laid down from the

Precambrian The Precambrian (or Pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pꞒ, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of the ...

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The J ...

periods. Formed in shallow seas, this sedimentary rock was pushed east and over the top of younger rock during the

Laramide orogeny The Laramide orogeny was a time period of mountain building in western North America, which started in the Late Cretaceous, 70 to 80 million years ago, and ended 35 to 55 million years ago. The exact duration and ages of beginning and end of the o ...

Climate

Based on the

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

, Nigel Peak is located in a

subarctic climate The subarctic climate (also called subpolar climate, or boreal climate) is a climate with long, cold (often very cold) winters, and short, warm to cool summers. It is found on large landmasses, often away from the moderating effects of an ocean, ge ...

zone with cold, snowy winters, and mild summers. Winter temperatures can drop below -20 °C with wind chill factors below -30 °C. Precipitation

runoff Runoff, run-off or RUNOFF may refer to: * RUNOFF, the first computer text-formatting program * Runoff or run-off, another name for bleed, printing that lies beyond the edges to which a printed sheet is trimmed * Runoff or run-off, a stock market ...

from Nigel Peak drains south into the

North Saskatchewan River The North Saskatchewan River is a glacier-fed river that flows from the Canadian Rockies continental divide east to central Saskatchewan, where it joins with the South Saskatchewan River to make up the Saskatchewan River. Its water flows eventual ...

, and north into the

Sunwapta River The Sunwapta River is a major tributary of the Athabasca River in Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada. Course The headwaters of the Sunwapta River are near the Columbia Icefield in the valley west-northwest of Sunwapta Pass, which divides Ja ...

which is a tributary of the Athabasca River.

Gallery

File:Nigel Peak from west at Athabasca Glacier.jpg, Nigel Peak from west File:Athabasca region.jpg, The southeast secondary summit File:Nigel Peak from Athabasca Glacier area.jpg, West aspect File:Nigel Peak, west.jpg

References

External links

* Nigel Pea
Weather forecast
* Parks Canada web site
Jasper National Park
* Parks Canada web site
Banff National Park
* Nigel Peak from

Tangle Ridge Tangle Ridge is a mountain summit located in Jasper National Park, in the Canadian Rockies of Alberta, Canada. Tangle Ridge is situated south of Beauty Creek and north of Tangle Creek, in the Sunwapta River valley. Topographic relief is signific ...