WATERTON LAKES NATIONAL PARK - Canadian Rockies: Including Banff and Jasper National Parks - page 402

If your tour of the Canadian Rockies originates south of the border and you're traveling
by road, I highly recommend leaving Waterton Lakes until the end of your trip—the slower
pace and solitude will create a pleasant ending for your travels.
THE LAND
Geology
Major upheavals under the earth's surface approximately 85 million years ago forced huge
plates of rock upward and began folding them over each other. One major sheet, known as
the Lewis Overthrust, forms the backbone of Waterton's topography as we see it today. It
slid up and over much younger bedrock along a 300-kilometer (186-mile) length extend-
ing north to Bow Valley.
PARK ENTRY
Visitors to Waterton Lakes National Park are required to stop at the park gate and
buy a permit. A National Parks Day Pass is adult $8, senior $7, child $4, to a max-
imum of $20 per vehicle, and is valid until 4pm the day following its purchase. An
annual pass for entry to the park is adult $39, senior $34, child $20, to a maximum
of $98 per vehicle.
If you're traveling to national parks beyond Waterton, a better deal is the annual
Discovery Pass, good for entry into all of Canada's national parks and historic sites;
adult $68, senior $58, child $34, or $137 per vehicle. These passes can be purchased
at any park gate; check www.pc.gc.ca for more information.
About 45 million years ago, this powerful uplift ceased and the forces of erosion took
over. About 1.9 million years ago, glaciers from the sheet of ice that once covered most of
Alberta crept through the mountains. As these thick sheets of ice advanced and retreated
with climatic changes, they gouged out valleys such as the classically U-shaped Water-
ton Valley. The three Waterton Lakes are depressions left at the base of the steep-sided
mountains after the ice had completely retreated 11,000 years ago. The deepest is 150
meters (500 feet). Cameron Lake, at the end of the Akamina Parkway, was formed when
a moraine—the pile of rock that accumulates at the foot of a retreating glacier—dammed
Cameron Creek. From the lake, Cameron Creek flows through a glaciated valley before
dropping into the much deeper Waterton Valley at Cameron Falls, behind the town of