Athabasca Glacier

The Athabasca Glacier is one of six major outlet glaciers flowing from the Columbia Icefield, the largest icefield in the Rocky Mountains of North America, straddling the Alberta–British Columbia border at the boundary of Banff and Jasper national parks. The glacier is 6 kilometres long and up to 300 metres thick, and its terminus is located approximately 1.5 kilometres from the Icefields Parkway — visible from the highway and easily approached on foot via a short walking path past marker posts showing the glacier's dramatic retreat over the past century. The Columbia Icefield Visitor Centre sits across the highway and serves as the staging area for Pursuit Collection's Ice Explorer tours, which carry visitors in purpose-built 56-wheeled vehicles onto the glacier surface where they can walk on the ice and drink glacial meltwater. The Ice Explorer is the only way to legally access the glacier surface; walking directly from the terminus approach trail onto the ice is prohibited. The Columbia Icefield Skywalk, located 6 kilometres south of the glacier along the Icefields Parkway, is a glass-floored observation platform extending 30 metres from the cliff face over the Sunwapta Valley, 280 metres above the valley floor; tickets for the Skywalk and Ice Explorer are typically bundled. Interpretive panels at both sites document the icefield's role in feeding river systems draining to three different oceans.