Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park 🇨🇦 Canada 🇺🇸 USA

The Contiguous Glacier and Waterton Lakes National Parks are located in northwestern Montana, in the United States, and southwestern Alberta in Canada, respectively. The parks are situated along the eastern border of the Rocky Mountains Biogeographical Province and at the extreme western edge of North America's interior grasslands. Straddling the border between the two countries and offering outstanding scenery, the park is exceptionally rich in plant and mammal specimens, as well as prairie, forest, alpine and glacial features. Waterton Glacier International Peace Park has a distinctive climate, physiographic setting, mountain-prairie interface and tri-ocean hydrographical divide. It is an area of significant scenic value with abundant and diverse flora and fauna. Visitors come to Glacier National Park for its magnificent scenery. The combination of vertical, glacier-scoured banded mountains, pristine turquoise lakes and streams, dense ancient forests and unrivaled assemblage of plants and animals makes superlatives inadequate. Glacier is big, wild, majestic, awesome and spectacular. Compared to most areas in the North American West, Glacier has an abundance of water. There are 131 named lakes in the park. Most of the low elevation lakes are the remnants of long glacial valleys, dammed at their outlets by end moraines. At higher elevations, most of them exist as glacial tarns, new lakes filling the bottoms of ice-scoured amphitheaters. Some 50 to 60 small glaciers are found at the higher elevations of Glacier Park. A hike near Iceberg Lake leads to the falls. In spring, water rushes over the upper falls so thick that the lower fall is completely hidden. During the summer months, as flows decrease, the water seems to change course and flow almost exclusively out of the lower fall. Glacier's water is considered the headwaters of the entire continent. From Triple Divide Peak, a droplet can theoretically split three ways and eventually make it to the Pacific, Atlantic and Hudson Bay watersheds. As a significant part of North America's source water, its purity is vital to the continent as a whole. Riverbeds are superficial boundaries of a stream. In many places, water moves through porous gravel and pebbles underground, only to re-emerge farther downstream. Winters in Glacier National Park are known for their massive accumulations of snow. Spring weather usually determines whether or not hydrologic activity will be in the headlines. Glacier and Waterton Lakes National Parks contain a stratigraphic record spanning more than 1,250 million years of sedimentary and tectonic evolution. Pre-Cambrian formations contain some of the oldest exposed rocks in the Rocky Mountains and a number of early fossil assemblages, including the fossil stromatolites formed from colonies of blue-green algae. The parks are typified by the sudden transition from prairie to mountain landscape, the latter represented by numerous lakes, streams and rivers. The parks include headwaters flowing into three ocean systems, namely Hudson Bay, the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. Avalanche Lake is located in a cirque on the west side of the continental divide. Massive mountains surround the lake, providing an unforgettable scenic experience. The lake itself is named for the numerous avalanches that roar down the surrounding mountains. For those lucky enough to get to Avalanche Lake on a warm day, soon after the trail opens in May, the sights and sounds of many avalanches offer an amazing spectacle. Avalanche Lake and the Trail of the Cedars are dominated by water. Abundant rainfall, prehistoric glaciers and rushing streams have combined here to create a landscape of striking beauty and rich diversity. This extra moisture allows species much more typical of forests on the Pacific coast to flourish here, hundreds of miles inland. The eastern end of the Going to the Sun Road runs along the northern side of St. Mary Lake. Spectacular mountain views are on display here in every direction. The native tribes of the area refer to St. Mary Lake as the Walden Lake. St. Mary Lake is the second largest lake in Glacier National Park. Named by a Catholic missionary priest, it is a long, narrow lake lying in a valley which cuts into the mountains on the eastern edge of the park. Crossing a footbridge over the St. Mary River, St. Mary Falls is just upriver. The sound of the falls can be heard for quite a distance. This is a very scenic spot, with the double falls and river winding through the grasses, wildflowers and green shrubs. There are many beautiful waterfalls in Glacier National Park, but several can be quite a challenge to access. One of the closest in proximity to the park road is St. Mary Falls. St. Mary Falls is a fairly strong little waterfall, coming down in two tiers along the St. Mary River. The two parks' diversity of habitat types creates opportunities for a wide range of animals. Most species have been here for thousands of years. With unrestricted movement and a rich natural ecosystem, at least 70 species of mammals make their home here, as well as hundreds of types of birds. Deer and larger mule deer are abundant in the two parks. Mountain goats are very sure-footed and seem to have skid-proof pads on their feet, allowing them to reach very high altitudes. They can be seen standing on rock ledges in places where no other mammal can reach. They are mostly white with a beard and weigh between 150 and 300 pounds. Possibly one of the most dangerous animals in the park is the moose. Moose are notorious for being ill-tempered and will chase a human without provocation. In the short snow-free summer months, the mountain meadows of the Arctic sub-alpine vegetation zone are transformed into a gloriously colorful sea of wildflowers, vast in number and sometimes rare varieties. A number of vegetation types have been identified in these two parks, including the extensive fir-whitebark forest, large areas of limber pine scrub, and intermediate alpine meadow. Six of the vascular plant species found in Waterton Lakes are classified as rare in Canada. Unlike most of the waterfalls found off the road, the Weeping Wall was not naturally formed. During the construction of the Going-to-the-Sun Road, a long section of rock was blasted out, which opened up numerous springs that continually fall onto the road. The wall is over 30 meters long. The park's verdant forests appear robust and eternal, but they are constantly changing. Without periodic disturbances caused by fire, blowdown, avalanches, and forest diseases, conditions favorable for new growth would not exist. Trees grow old, die, and are replaced by other species through a process called succession. Two Medicine is the collective name of a region located in the southeastern section of Glacier National Park. A campground is located alongside Two Medicine Lake. Between the late 1890s until the completion of the Going-to-the-Sun Road in 1932, Two Medicine was one of the most visited sections of the park. Recent archaeological surveys in Glacier Park have found evidence of human use dating back over 10,000 years. These people may have been the ancestors of tribes that live in the area today. By the time the first European explorers came to this region, several different tribes inhabited the area. The Blackfeet Indians controlled the vast prairies east of the mountains. The Salish and Kootenai Indians lived and hunted in the western valleys. They also traveled east of the mountains to hunt buffalo. In the early 1800s, French, British, and Spanish trappers arrived in search of beaver. In 1806, the Lewis and Clark expedition came within 80 kilometers of the area that is now the park. Five large ecoregions are found within the water glacier complex, alpine tundra, subalpine forest, montane forest, aspen parkland, and fescue grassland. The word tundra comes from the Finnish word tunturi, meaning a treeless plain. Treeline occurs on the alpine tundra at about 2,100 meters on the western slope and 1,800 meters on the eastern side. The alpine zone above that covers nearly one quarter of the Glacier and Waterton National Parks. This land above the treeline is made up of expanses of bare rock. The high country is a land of harsh conditions. At the higher elevations of the subalpine zone, the dense forest zone gives way to widely spaced islands of dwarf trees and lush meadows. The subalpine forest is the single most extensive vegetation community in both Waterton and Glacier. It is a region characterized by heavy snowfall and a short growing season. Arboreal element is also present with dwarf birch and fireweed. The montane forest occurs at low to mid elevations in both parks, but on the eastern slopes is largely restricted to the dry foothills and major river valleys. It is a mix of dry grasslands and relatively open mixed poplar and coniferous forests. Douglas fir, white spruce, and limber pine are characteristic trees of this zone. The uniqueness of Waterton Park is its blend of unusual geology, mild climate, rare wildflowers, and abundance of wildlife. It is a scene that has remained unchanged for centuries. The Prince of Wales Hotel opened its doors in Waterton Lakes National Park on July 25, 1927. The hotel stands isolated on a bluff overlooking a spectacular vista of mountains, lakes, town, and prairie. Its striking design and dramatic setting make it Waterton's most recognized landmark. The principal features of the landscape are u-shaped valleys with high vertical rock faces, lateral hanging valleys from which countless waterfalls cascade into the main valley below, narrow sharp-edged ridges and crests, and more than 200 smallish karst lakes in addition to larger lakes in the terminal basins. All are testimony to the heavy glaciation that occurred during the Pleistocene period. The 50 or so glaciers in the park at the present time are not, however, relics of the great continental ice sheets, having formed more recently and after the intervening warm period. The Waterton Glacier Park lies along the eastern margin of the Lewis Range of the Rocky Mountains, which rise abruptly from the western edge of the Great Plains. The Lewis overthrust of Waterton Glacier began 170 million years ago, when a collision of the Earth's crustal plates elevated numerous mountain chains and formed the ancestral Rocky Mountains. Ever-increasing stresses near the end of this great event shoved a huge rock ridge, several miles thick and several hundred miles wide, eastward more than 50 miles. Waterton Lakes National Park is also important for its archaeological wealth. A number of prehistoric sites have been discovered in Glacier Park, some of which are thousands of years old. UNESCO designated the Waterton Glacier International Peace Park a World Heritage Site on December 6, 1995. The park was designated because it was an outstanding example, representing significant ongoing ecological and biological processes.