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 in the Canadian Rockies in the province of

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

. Sunwapta Pass is the low point of the saddle created between

Mount Athabasca Mount Athabasca is located in the Columbia Icefield of Jasper National Park in Canada. The mountain was named in 1898 by J. Norman Collie, who made the first ascent on August 18 of that year. Athabasca is the Cree language name for "where there ...

and Nigel Peak. The pass marks the boundary between Banff and

Jasper National Park Jasper National Park is a national park in Alberta, Canada. It is the largest national park within Alberta's Rocky Mountains spanning . It was established as a national park in 1930 and declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. Its locatio ...

s. 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 ...

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

Jasper Jasper, an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or cryptocrystalline chalcedony and other mineral phases,Kostov, R. I. 2010. Review on the mineralogical systematics of jasper and related rocks. – Archaeometry Workshop, 7, 3, 209-213PDF/ref> ...

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

Trans-Canada Highway The Trans-Canada Highway (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 Atlantic Ocean on ...

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'') is a river in Alberta, Canada, which 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 ...

drainage to the north and the North Saskatchewan system to the south. Waters flowing north from this summit eventually reach the Arctic Ocean via the Mackenzie River, while those flowing south cross the prairies via the

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a province in western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dak ...

and

Nelson River The Nelson River is a river of north-central North America, in the Canadian province of Manitoba. The river drains Lake Winnipeg and runs before it ends in Hudson Bay. Its full length (including the Saskatchewan River and Bow River) is , i ...

s to Hudson Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.Patton, Brian. ''Parkways of the Canadian Rockies''. Summerthought Publishing, 2008, p. 94.

References

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