Tangle Ridge is a mountain summit located in

Jasper National Park Jasper National Park, in Alberta, Canada, is the largest national park within Alberta's Rocky Mountains, spanning . It was established as Jasper Forest Park in 1907, renamed as a national park in 1930, and declared a UNESCO world heritage site ...

, 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 ...

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 ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. Tangle Ridge is situated south of Beauty Creek and north of Tangle Creek, in the Sunwapta River valley.

Topographic relief Terrain (), alternatively relief or topographical relief, is the dimension and shape of a given surface of land. In physical geography, terrain is the lay of the land. This is usually expressed in terms of the elevation, slope, and orientati ...

is significant as the summit rises 1,200 metres (3,937 ft) above Beauty Creek in . Views from the top of Tangle Ridge provide photographers with an opportunity to capture the peaks surrounding the

Columbia Icefield The Columbia Icefield is the largest ice field in North America's Rocky Mountains. Located within the Canadian Rocky Mountains astride the Continental Divide along the border of British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, the ice field lies partly ...

, some of which, such as Mount Columbia and

Mount Alberta Mount Alberta is a mountain located in the upper Athabasca River Valley of Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada. J. Norman Collie named the mountain in 1898 after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta. It is the most difficult of the 11,000ers fro ...

, are otherwise hidden from view along 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 ...

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History

The mountain was named by Mary Schäffer in 1907 for the difficulty that climbers had descending down Tangle Creek from the ridge. The mountain's toponym was officially adopted in 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 Canad ...

Climate

Based on the

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

, Tangle Ridge is located in a

subarctic climate The subarctic climate (also called subpolar climate, or boreal climate) is a continental 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 ...

zone with cold, snowy winters, and mild summers. Winter temperatures can drop below with wind chill factors below . Weather conditions during winter make Tangle Ridge one of the better places in the Rockies for

ice climbing Ice climbing is a climbing discipline that involves ascending routes consisting entirely of frozen water. To ascend, the ice climber uses specialist equipment, particularly double ice axes (or the more modern ice tools) and rigid crampons. ...

. Precipitation runoff from Tangle Ridge drains into the Sunwapta River which is a tributary of 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 ...

Geology

Tangle Ridge is composed of

sedimentary rock Sedimentary rocks are types of rock (geology), rock formed by the cementation (geology), cementation of sediments—i.e. particles made of minerals (geological detritus) or organic matter (biological detritus)—that have been accumulated or de ...

laid down from the

Precambrian The Precambrian ( ; or pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pC, 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 t ...

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 143.1 Mya. ...

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, 80 to 70 million years ago, and ended 55 to 35 million years ago. The exact duration and ages of beginning and end of the o ...

Ice Climbing Routes

Ice Climbing Routes with

grades Grade most commonly refers to: * Grading in education, a measurement of a student's performance by educational assessment (e.g. A, pass, etc.) * A designation for students, classes and curricula indicating the number of the year a student has reach ...

on Tangle Ridge: * ''Shades of Beauty'' – WI4 * ''Tangle Falls'' – WI2-3 * ''The Stage'' – WI3-4 * ''The Wings'' – WI3-4 * ''Curtain Call'' – WI6 * ''Cyber Pasty Memorial'' – WI5+ * ''Melt Out'' – WI3 * ''Rick Blak Memorial Route'' – WI5

Tangle Falls

Tangle Falls is a multi-tiered cascade that might be the most often photographed waterfall alongside the Icefields Parkway because of its easy access. Height: Width: Coordinates: N 52° 16.035 W 117° 17.197Tangle Falls
Waymarking

Gallery

File:View looking south from Tangle Ridge.jpg, View looking south from Tangle Ridge File:Icefields Parkway, Alberta (5809323944).jpg, Tangle Ridge (left), Mt. Kitchener (right) and Sunwapta River as seen from the Icefields Parkway File:Tangle Ridge - Jasper National Park.jpg, Northwest aspect of Tangle Ridge from Icefields Parkway File:Tangle Ridge.jpg, Tangle Ridge and Sunwapta River File:Tangle Ridge from south.jpg, Tangle Ridge from the south File:Tangle Ridge 2.jpg, North aspect from Sunwapta Peak File:Tangle Ridge 0.jpg, North face File:TangleFallsAB.jpg, Tangle Falls in winter File:Icefields Pkwy (53237535094).jpg, Tangle Ridge and Sunwapta River

References

External links

* Weather forecast
Tangle Ridge
* Parks Canada web site
Jasper National Park
{{Canadian Rockies, state=collapsed Three-thousanders of Alberta Mountains of Jasper National Park Ridges of Alberta Queen Elizabeth Ranges