Many Glacier is an area within Glacier National Park which is located in the U.S. state of Montana. The Many Glacier region is located north of the Going-to-the-Sun Road, on the east side of the park. Lake Sherburne is the large lake in the area and the Many Glacier Hotel, the largest hotel within the park, is along the shore of the adjacent Swiftcurrent Lake. The Many Glacier Hotel and surrounding buildings are a National Historic Landmark, with original construction dating back to 1915. Many Glacier is surrounded by the high peaks of the Lewis Range, and numerous hiking trails can be accessed from the area. The region is noted for numerous lakes, waterfalls and dense coniferous forests interspersed with alpine meadows.
Banff National Park is Canada’s oldest national park, established in 1885. Located in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains Banff encompasses 2,564 sq miles of mountainous terrain, with many glaciers and ice fields, dense coniferous forest, and alpine landscapes. The Icefields Parkway extends from Lake Louise, Alberta to Jasper National Park in the north. The parks together along with the surrounding area form the Canadian Rocky Mountain UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Over the past few million years, glaciers have at times covered most of the park, but today are found only on the mountain slopes. The Columbia Icefield is the largest uninterrupted glacial mass in the Rockies. You can walk out onto the glacier but be sure to bring sunglasses. I neglected to bring a pair and the resulting snow blindness gave me the worst headache I ever had in my life.
The walk up to what is now the foot of the glacier gives you a real sense of the effects of Global Warming as the markers indicate how far the glacier has receded in the last few decades.
Jasper National Park is a national park in Alberta, Canada. It is the largest national park within Alberta’s Rocky Mountains spanning 11,000 4,200 sq mi. Its location is north of Banff National Park and west of Edmonton. The park contains the glaciers of the Columbia Icefield, springs, lakes, waterfalls and mountains and is a part of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Icefields Parkway is a highway 140 mi in length from Lake Louise, Alberta in Banff National Park, to Jasper, Alberta. The highway parallels the continental divide, providing motor access to the mountains.
The Fortymile River is a 60-mile tributary of the Yukon River in the U.S. state of Alaska and the Canadian territory of Yukon. Beginning at the confluence of its north and south forks in the Fairbanks Area, the Fortymile flows generally northeast into Canada to meet the larger river 32 miles southeast of Eagle, Alaska. The closest road to the area is the Top of the World Highway. You can still see active gold panning claims along the route as this was once one of the richest panning areas in Alaska.
Kluane National Park and Reserve are two protected areas in the southwest corner of the territory of Yukon. The National Park Reserve was set aside in 1972 to become a national park, pending settlement of Native American land claims. It covered an area of 8,499 square miles. When agreement was reached with the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations over an eastern portion of the Reserve, that part—about 2,300 square miles became a national park in 1993, and is a unit of the national park system administered co-operatively with Parks Canada. The larger western section remains a Reserve, awaiting a final land claim settlement with the Kluane First Nation. The park borders British Columbia to the south, while the Reserve borders both British Columbia to the south, and the United States (Alaska) to the south and west.
The Reserve includes the highest mountain in Canada, Mount Logan at 19,551 feet of the Saint Elias Mountains. Mountains and glaciers dominate the park’s landscape, covering 83% of its area. The rest of the land in the park is forest and tundra—east of the largest mountains and glaciers—where the climate is colder and drier than in the western and southern parts of the park. Trees grow only at the park’s lowest elevations.
The bi-national Kluane-Wrangell-St. Elias-Glacier Bay-Tatshenshini-Alsek park system comprising Kluane, Wrangell-St Elias, Glacier Bay and Tatshenshini-Alsek parks, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979 for the spectacular glacier and icefield landscapes as well as for the importance of grizzly bears, caribou and Dall sheep habitat. This is one of the largest areas of protected land in the world and is immensely wilderness with limited access except by foot or snowshoe. You can still enjoy the expansive vistas from the road.
