The national park with the most abundant amounts of snow
Glacier National Park was founded in 1886 together with Yoho National Park to the east, making it one of the oldest national parks in Canada. However, its success story in tourism did not begin until 1962. In that year the Trans-Canada Highway was completed and the area around Glacier National Park opened up to visitors. The park administration created campsites and other facilities for this purpose.
The 1,349 square kilometer Glacier National Park is one of a total of seven in the province of British Columbia. The park is largely located in the Selkirk Mountain and a small part in the Purcell Mountains. About half of the national park is above the tree line, i.e. over 2000 meters high. Due to its exposed location, Glacier National Park is a snow paradise. Around 17 meters of fresh snow falls each winter, and the amounts of snow are among the most productive in the world. In total, a tenth of the park area is covered by snow and ice all year round.
In the middle of the Glacier National Park lies the Rogers Pass, part of the Trans-Canada Highway. The pass was designated a National Historic Site of Canada due to its importance in the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1971. The highest mountain in the park is Mount Dawson, which rises 3390 meters into the sky. Another special feature is the Nakimu Cave, discovered by Charles Deutschmann in 1904, a cave system that is now almost six kilometers long and is one of the longest and largest cave systems in Canada. Since the cave is located in bear land with a high density of grizzly bears, it was closed to the public in 1935 as the tourist interest waned, and the stairs and bridges built for access were removed.
The Glacier National Park offers a unique natural landscape, the rough climate, the large amounts of snow and the mountainous terrain have resulted in different levels of vegetation. Here you can find the rainforest of the temperate latitudes as well as forests in valleys with trees up to 1000 years old, such as Engelmann spruces, hemlocks, rocky mountain firs and giant trees of life and lush flower meadows in avalanche paths. The fauna is just as abundant, with over 50 species of mammals and 180 species of birds in Glacier National Park. Among other things, grizzly, black bears, moose, mountain goats, marmots, beavers, caribou, ptarmigan and snow bulls can be observed.
Did you know that …
- the steep, rough mountains, warm, humid climate and a large variety of plants and animals are typical of this region?
- the Glacier National Park is a unique biotope for old cedars and hemlock firs as well as for endangered, wild animal species such as the mountain caribou, the mountain goat and the grizzly bear?
- Glacier National Park is Canada’s second oldest national park?
- Glacier National Park and Mount Revelstoke assign jobs in the campsites, in the visitor center, in administration every summer?
- Visitors to the park can find ski areas including alpine tubs and ice fields with slopes greater than 1,500 meters?
- is the best time to see bears in the park from mid-May to early June?
- is it allowed to camp in remote areas in Glacier National Park? To do this, however, you need a wilderness pass. Each of these places has extra storage tents and storage tubes to keep food out of the reach of bears.
- There are four huts in remote areas in Glacier National Park in different price ranges that you can stay in? With the Wilderness Pass, part of the costs are already covered. The ascent to three of the huts is dangerous and you need mountaineering experience to get there.
- the summer months of July and September and the winter months of December and February are the most suitable months for leisure activities such as hiking, walking, picnicking, camping, cross-country skiing, alpine skiing and snowshoeing?
- Glacier National Park is located in the Columbia Mountains, one of the harshest landscapes in Canada?