Pemberton Icefield

Last updated
Pemberton Icefields as seen from the ISS ISS022-E-8455 - View of British Columbia.jpg
Pemberton Icefields as seen from the ISS

The Pemberton Icefield or Pemberton Icecap, is the southernmost of the series of very large icefields studding the Pacific Ranges of the southern Coast Mountains in British Columbia, Canada.

Contents

Physical Details

Approximately 300 km2 (120 sq mi) in area, the icefield's shape is roughly triangular, with an apex on its northern side, where a short gap separates the ice-mass from that of the smaller Overseer Icefield. Some reckonings include the icemasses of the Overseer massif, in which case the Pemberton Icefield's area may be considered to be ~60 km2 (23 sq mi) larger in area. Overseer Mountain is the highest summit in the region lying in the triangle between the basins of the Lillooet, Squamish-Elaho and Cheakamus-Green valleys, although the highest named summit in the Pemberton Icefield proper is Longspur Peak, on the main icefield's northwest flank above the Ryan River, although a higher, unnamed summit lies in between them, at the northernmost edge of the icefield. Just east of Longspur are Kwtamts Peak and Sisqa Peak (names from St'at'imcets language of Lil'wat people, whose traditional territory includes the eastern reaches and related valleys of the icefield). The southernmost summit of the icefield is Exodus Peak, which lies in the angle between the uppermost reaches of the Squamish River and the valley of the Elaho River, a tributary of the Squamish.

Streams

Streams having their origin in the icecap include the Squamish River and Soo River on its southern edge, Rutherford Creek of its eastern point, the Ryan River off its northeast side, and tributary streams to the Elaho River, a tributary of the Squamish, on the west, and the south fork of Meager Creek, on its north side, another tributary of the Lillooet. Other smaller icefields nearby are the Ipsoot Glacier (also known as the Ipsoot Icefield) to the east, on the north side of Rutherford Creek, and the Powder Mountain Icefield to the south, beyond the divide separating the headwaters of the Squamish and Soo Rivers.

Nearby the Resort Municipality of Whistler, the icefield is popular with back-country skiers heli-skiing operations, summer heli-hiking, and onscreen entertainment. Pemberton stands in for Antarctica or the Arctic in films and TV, including the X-Files movie and Stargate: SG-1 , "Solitudes" episode, [1] and Stargate: Atlantis long-running Stargate set of series.

Related Research Articles

Lillooet is a town in the Fraser Canyon in British Columbia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Squamish-Lillooet Regional District</span> Regional district in British Columbia, Canada

The Squamish-Lillooet Regional District is a quasi-municipal administrative area in British Columbia, Canada. It stretches from Britannia Beach in the south to Pavilion in the north. Lillooet, Pemberton, Whistler and Squamish are the four municipalities in the regional district. Its administrative offices are in the Village of Pemberton, although the district municipalities of Squamish and Whistler are larger population centres. The district covers 16,353.68 km² of land area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Squamish River</span> River in British Columbia, Canada

The Squamish River is a short but very large river in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Its drainage basin is 3,328 square kilometres (1,285 sq mi) in size. The total length of the Squamish River is approximately 80 kilometres (50 mi).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elaho River</span> River in British Columbia, Canada

The Elaho River is a c.70 km long river beginning in the Coast Mountains northwest of the towns of Whistler and Pemberton, British Columbia. It is a tributary of the Squamish River and is known for its whitewater rafting and kayaking as well as for the intense alpine scenery lining its route.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lillooet River</span> River in British Columbia, Canada

The Lillooet River is a major river of the southern Coast Mountains of British Columbia. It begins at Silt Lake, on the southern edge of the Lillooet Crown Icecap about 80 kilometres northwest of Pemberton and about 85 kilometres northwest of Whistler. Its upper valley is about 95 kilometres in length, entering Lillooet Lake about 15 km downstream from Pemberton on the eastern outskirts of the Mount Currie reserve of the Lil'wat branch of the St'at'imc people. From Pemberton Meadows, about 40 km upstream from Pemberton, to Lillooet Lake, the flat bottomlands of the river form the Pemberton Valley farming region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pacific Ranges</span> Subrange of the Coast Mountains in British Columbia, Canada

The Pacific Ranges are the southernmost subdivision of the Coast Mountains portion of the Pacific Cordillera. Located entirely within British Columbia, Canada, they run northwest from the lower stretches of the Fraser River to Bella Coola and Burke Channel, north of which are the Kitimat Ranges. The Coast Mountains lie between the Interior Plateau and the Coast of British Columbia.

Mount Raleigh, elevation 3,132 m (10,276 ft), is one of the principal summits of the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains of southern British Columbia in Canada. It is located just southeast of the confluence of the Southgate and Bishop Rivers, northeast of the head of Bute Inlet, and is the highest summit south of the Bishop River's divide with the Lillooet River at Ring Pass, which is at the southeastern edge of the Lillooet Icefield and just north of the Pemberton Icecap. It is also the highest peak south of the pass between the upper basins of Chilko Lake and the Taseko Lakes, just north of which is Monmouth Mountain at 3,182 m (10,440 ft).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cayoosh Range</span> Mountain range in the country of Canada

The Cayoosh Range is the northernmost section of the Lillooet Ranges, which are a subrange of the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains in British Columbia, Canada. The range covers an area of c. 3770 km² and is approximately 65 km (40 mi) SW to NE and about 20 km (12 mi) SE to NW.

The Birkenhead River, formerly known as the Portage River, the Pole River and the Mosquito River, is a major tributary of the Lillooet River, which via Harrison Lake and the Harrison River is one of the major tributaries of the lower Fraser River. It is just over 50 km long from its upper reaches in the unnamed ranges south of Bralorne, British Columbia ; their western area towards the named Bendor Range east of Bralorne is sometimes called the Cadwallader Ranges.

The Lillooet Icecap, also called the Lillooet Icefield or the Lillooet Crown, is a large icefield in the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. It is about 90 km (56 mi) northwest of the towns of Pemberton and Whistler, and about 175 km (109 mi) north of Vancouver, British Columbia. The Lillooet Icecap is one of the largest of several large icefields in the Pacific Ranges which are the largest temperate-latitude glacial fields in the world. At its maximum extent including its glacial tongues it measures 30 km (19 mi) east to west and 20 km (12 mi) north to south; its central icefield area is approximately 15 km (9 mi) in diameter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homathko Icefield</span> Icefield in British Columbia, Canada

The Homathko Icefield is an icefield in British Columbia, Canada. Officially named the Homathko Snowfield from 1950 until the current name was adopted in 1976, it is one of the largest icefields in the southern half of the Coast Mountains, with an area of over 2,000 km2 (770 sq mi). It is located between Chilko Lake and the Homathko River, and lies across the Great Canyon of that river to the east of the Waddington Range. Although adjacent to Mount Queen Bess, the Homathko Icefield is largely an expanse of ice, about 30 km (19 mi) across, ringed by relatively minor peaks and distinguished, relative to the other Coast Mountains icefields, by lack of any major ones. The Lillooet Icecap and the Compton Névé, both similar in size to the Homathko Icefield but much more peak-studded, lie to the Homathko Icefield's southeast across the Southgate River which bends around the icefield-massif's southern flank to reach the head of Bute Inlet adjacent to the mouth of the Homathko River. The icefield is essentially one large ice-girt montane plateau between these two rivers.

Cayoosh Pass is a mountain pass in the Lillooet Ranges of the Pacific Ranges of the southern Coast Mountains in British Columbia, Canada. It lies just west of Duffey Lake on BC Highway 99 between the towns of Lillooet and Pemberton, formed by the headwaters of Cayoosh Creek to the east, flowing to the Fraser River at Lillooet, and Joffre Creek to the west, flowing steeply downhill to Lillooet Lake just southeast of the Mount Currie Indian Reserve.

Railroad Pass, 1385 m (4544 ft), usually known locally as Railway Pass, is a mountain pass in the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. Traversed by a seasonal dirt road known as the Hurley Main and sometimes also referred to therefore as Hurley Pass, the pass connects the Pemberton Meadows area of the upper valley of the Lillooet River, via Railroad Creek, to the uppermost reaches of the Hurley River, the main south fork of the Bridge River which the Hurley joins at the settlement of Gold Bridge.

Rutherford Creek is a tributary of the Green River, British Columbia, Canada, entering that river a few miles above Nairn Falls Provincial Park, near the village of Pemberton. The creek's headwaters are on the eastern side of the Pemberton Icefield, from where it flows southeast for the first half of its course, then generally east for the remainder. It is approximately 24 km (15 mi) in length. The mouth is at 50° 16' 3" N, 122° 57' 41" W.

The Ryan River is a short but major tributary of the Lillooet River in British Columbia, Canada, running largely eastward approximately 42 kilometres (26 mi) from its source on the eastern flank of the Pemberton Icefield before joining the Lillooet River in the area of Pemberton Meadows.

The Lillooet Land District is one of the 59 cadastral subdivisions of British Columbia, which were created by the Lands Act of the Colony of British Columbia in 1859, defined as "a territorial division with legally defined boundaries for administrative purposes". The land district's boundaries came to be used as the boundary of the initial Lillooet riding for the provincial Legislature from 1871, when the colony became a province. In addition to use in descriptions of land titles and lot surveys, the Land District was also the basis of the Lillooet Mining District.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ipsoot Mountain</span> Glaciated summit in southwest British Columbia, Canada

Ipsoot Mountain is a 2,576-metre (8,451-foot) glaciated summit located in southwest British Columbia, Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ashlu Mountain</span>

Ashlu Mountain is a 2,561-metre (8,402-foot) pyramidic mountain summit located in the Pacific Ranges in the Coast Mountains of southwestern British Columbia, Canada known for its glaciation and climbing routes. It is situated 50 km (31 mi) northwest of Squamish, in the Elaho-Jervis Divide, where it is the tallest peak in that subrange. Its nearest higher peaks are Mount Tantalus in the Tantalus Range, 33 km (20 mi) to the southeast, and its line parent, Mount Tinniswood, 33.5 km (21 mi) to the northwest at the head of Princess Louisa Inlet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhododendron Mountain</span>

Rhododendron Mountain is a 2,523-metre (8,278-foot) glaciated summit in British Columbia, Canada.

References

50°22′00″N123°22′00″W / 50.36667°N 123.36667°W / 50.36667; -123.36667