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Peyto Lake ( ) is a MISTAYA CANYON and PEYTO LAKE: Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada: ALONG THE ICEFIELD PARKWAY
/ref> which heads northwest from the lake's outflow.
glacier
A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...
-fed lake
A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...
in Banff National Park
Banff National Park is Canada, Canada's first 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 ter ...
in the Canadian Rockies
The Canadian Rockies () 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 of the Canadian Cordillera, w ...
. The lake is near 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 Banff Nat ...
. It was named for Bill Peyto
Ebenezer William Peyto ( ; 14 February 1869 – 23 March 1943) was an English-Canadian pioneer, mountain guide, and early park Park ranger, warden of Banff National Park.
Life and career
Peyto was born in Welling, Kent in 1869 and immigrated to ...
, an early trail guide and trapper in the Banff area.
The lake is formed in a valley of the Waputik Range, between Caldron Peak, Peyto Peak and Mount Jimmy Simpson, at an elevation of .
During the summer, significant amounts of glacial rock flour
Rock flour, or glacial flour, consists of fine-grained, silt-sized particles of rock, generated by mechanical grinding of bedrock by glacial erosion or by artificial grinding to a similar size. Because the material is very small, it becomes suspe ...
flow into the lake from a nearby glacier, and these suspended rock particles are what give the lake a bright, turquoise colour. Because of its bright colour, photos of the lake often appear in illustrated books, and the area around the lake is a popular sightseeing spot. In 2021, Parks Canada
Parks Canada ()Parks Canada is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Parks Canada Agency (). is the agency of the Government of Canada which manages the country's 37 National Parks, three National Marine Co ...
completed improvements to the lake viewpoint, trails, and parking areas. The lake is best seen from Bow Summit, the highest point on the Icefields Parkway.
The lake is fed by Peyto Creek, which drains water from Caldron Lake and Peyto Glacier (part of the Wapta Icefield). Peyto Lake is the origin of the Mistaya River,/ref> which heads northwest from the lake's outflow.
References
External links
* * Banff National Park Lakes of Alberta Glacial lakes of Canada {{AlbertaRockies-geo-stub