Sunwapta Pass (2,035 m/6,677 ft)Jasper National Park of Canada
Parks Canada. Retrieved 2012-05-26. (2,023 m/6,637 ft) (2,055 m/6,742 ft) is a

mountain pass A mountain pass is a navigable route through a mountain range or over a ridge. Since mountain ranges can present formidable barriers to travel, passes have played a key role in trade, war, and both Human migration, human and animal migration t ...

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 ...

in the province of

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

. Sunwapta Pass is the low point of the saddle created between Mount Athabasca and

Nigel Peak Nigel Peak is a mountain summit located on the shared border of Banff National Park and Jasper National Park, in the Canadian Rockies of Alberta, Canada. Nigel has two peaks, the north summit is the highest point. The nearest higher peak is Moun ...

. The pass marks the boundary between Banff and

Jasper Jasper, an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or cryptocrystalline chalcedony and other mineral phases, is an opaque, impure variety of silica, usually red, yellow, brown or green in color; and rarely blue. The common red color is due to ...

national parks. 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 ...

travels through Sunwapta Pass 108 km (67 mi) southeast of the town of

and 122 km (76 mi) northwest of the Parkway's junction with the

Trans-Canada Highway The Trans-Canada Highway (Canadian French, French: ; abbreviated as the TCH or T-Can) is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the A ...

near Lake Louise. The pass is the second highest point on the Icefields Parkway. Bow Summit (2,069 m/6,790 ft) in Banff National Park is the highest point on the parkway. Sunwapta Pass marks the watershed divide between the

Athabasca River The Athabasca River (French: ''Rivière Athabasca'') in Alberta, Canada, originates at the Columbia Icefield in Jasper National Park and flows more than before emptying into Lake Athabasca. Much of the land along its banks is protected in nationa ...

drainage to the north and the

North Saskatchewan 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 ev ...

system to the south. Waters flowing north from this summit eventually reach the Arctic Ocean via the

Mackenzie River The Mackenzie River (French: ; Slavey language, Slavey: ' èh tʃʰò literally ''big river''; Inuvialuktun: ' uːkpɑk literally ''great river'') is a river in the Canadian Canadian boreal forest, boreal forest and tundra. It forms, ...

, while those flowing south cross the prairies via the

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...

and

Nelson Nelson may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Nelson'' (1918 film), a historical film directed by Maurice Elvey * ''Nelson'' (1926 film), a historical film directed by Walter Summers * ''Nelson'' (opera), an opera by Lennox Berkeley to a lib ...

rivers to

Hudson Bay Hudson Bay, sometimes called Hudson's Bay (usually historically), is a large body of Saline water, saltwater in northeastern Canada with a surface area of . It is located north of Ontario, west of Quebec, northeast of Manitoba, and southeast o ...

and the Arctic Ocean.Patton, Brian. ''Parkways of the Canadian Rockies''. Summerthought Publishing, 2008, p. 94.

Climate

References

External links

* Banff National Park Jasper National Park Mountain passes of Alberta {{AlbertaRockies-geo-stub