About 70 miles south of Jasper you come to the Columbia Icefields. The Icefields is a flat "straightaway" that varies between 100 to 300 yards wide and runs for several miles. It gets an average of 275 inches of snowfall per year. There are eight major glaciers feeding the Icefields. There are eleven mountains all of about 12,000 feet lining both sides of the Icefields.
The Icefield sits atop a "triple" Continental Divide. The Athabasca River, the North Saskatchewan River, and the tributaries of the Columbia River all originate in the Columbia Icefield. So, the Columbia River eventually flows into the Pacific Ocean dividing Washington State from Oregon. The Athabasca River ultimately arrives in the Arctic Ocean and the Saskatchewan ultimately in the Hudson Bay and thus North Atlantic Ocean. This is the Canadian Rockies at its finest.
The road that parallels the icefield at times is right next to the icefield and at times a 1000 feet above.
This is a favorite place of mine. I have seen Mountain Goats, Bighorn Sheep, Caribou, Moose, and Coyotes among others along the Icefields.
Here is a close-up of a Mountain Goat nearly 1,000 feet above:
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