Crowsnest Mountain


Crowsnest Mountain is a scenic mountain in the southern Canadian Rockies of southwestern Alberta, Canada. It can be seen from Alberta Highway 3 west of the town of Coleman in the Crowsnest Pass. The mountain was originally named by the Cree First Nations due to the ravens that nested in the area. The scrambling route on the north side was first ascended in 1915.

Geology

The grey rocks exposed in the cliffs on the upper part of Crowsnest Mountain are limestones and shales of Late Devonian to Early Mississippian age. They were moved up from the west along the Lewis thrust fault and emplaced over younger rocks that underlie the wooded lower slopes of the mountain. During that movement they were formed into a broad syncline by fault-bend folding.
The Devonian to Mississippian rocks are part of the Lewis thrust sheet which was originally continuous from the High Rock Range immediately to the west. The thrust sheet has since been cut through by erosion along Allison Creek, however, leaving Crowsnest Mountain and its northerly neighbour, Seven Sisters Mountain, standing together as an isolated klippe.