Canmore Nordic Centre Provincial Park is a provincial park in Alberta , Canada , located immediately west of Canmore , 105 km (65 mi) west of Calgary .
26-593: This provincial park is situated at the foot of Mount Rundle within the Canadian Rocky Mountains along Bow Valley and the Trans-Canada Highway , at an elevation of 1,400 m (4,600 ft), and has a surface of 4.5 km (1.7 sq mi). It is part of Kananaskis Country 's park system. The Canmore Nordic Centre was originally constructed for the 1988 Winter Olympics . The cross-country skiing , biathlon and cross-country skiing part of
52-422: A decollement plane. Evaporites are also often related the decollement and thrust planes. Evaporites are strongly prone to shear deformation and therefore preferred planes of detachment. Behavior of thrust sheets is currently explained on the model of the orogenic wedge , which is dependent on the internal wedge taper θ. Gravitational sliding is movement generated by the movement down an inclined plane under
78-480: A thrust fault from its original position. Nappes form in compressional tectonic settings like continental collision zones or on the overriding plate in active subduction zones. Nappes form when a mass of rock is forced (or "thrust" ) over another rock mass, typically on a low angle fault plane. The resulting structure may include large-scale recumbent folds , shearing along the fault plane, imbricate thrust stacks , fensters and klippes . The term stems from
104-695: Is a common dimension stone used in southern Alberta for landscaping and building purposes. It has been used in the construction of the Banff Springs Hotel and several of the Parks Canada buildings. It is fine-grained sandstone dating back to the Triassic Period. At the EEOR near Canmore there is a well-known scramble, the Goat Creek hiking trail, with its starting point at parking trailhead, which starts at
130-563: Is an area where the nappe is completely separated from its substratum. It is often compressed and reduced, even underthrust below the surrounding tectonic units, resulting in a specific structure called a suture . A nappe whose root area is unknown, is called a rootless nappe . Areas with a nappe structure often contain two types of geological features: According to petrographical composition, two basic types of nappes are known: Nappes are generally considered as compressional structures, however some exceptions could be found especially among
156-399: Is considered gruelling by some. About halfway up there is a Central Gully, a huge watercourse with a well-worn path which is a dead end. Cliffs become higher and more vertical and there is no scrambling route. The real route crosses the watercourse and then immediately turns left (watch for markings). As one passes the treeline, the hiker ventures onto a feature called the "Dragon's back", where
182-474: Is never the same. In deep shadow in the morning, it borrows a warm glow from the setting sun at the end of the day. Its colour runs the gamut from orange to cold blue-grey, with overtones of violet and intervals of green." The viewpoint from which most photographs are taken, 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from Mount Rundle, at the end of Vermilion Lakes road, with Vermillion Lakes in the foreground. Mount Rundle and Sulphur Mountain can be seen from Mount Norquay on
208-519: The Carpathians . Nappe can be qualified in a number of ways to indicate various features of a formation. The frontal part in the direction of movement, is called the leading edge of a nappe; numerous folds and secondary thrusts and duplexes are common features here and are sometimes called digitations . The surface of a thrust fault which caused movement of a nappe is called a decollement , detachment plane or sole of thrust. The root area
234-750: The Nordic combined events were held there. The centre also hosted the giant slalom and slalom events for the Banff 1991 Winter Deaflympics , in the Olympic tracks area. The Canmore Nordic Centre provides trails for use by cross-country skiers , mountain bikers , and hikers . The park also features a disc golf course . The centre was re-developed for the 2005 Cross-country World Cup and future international events. The Nordic Centre hosts national training camps for Canada's biathlon and cross-country ski teams, in addition to providing winter and summer recreational facilities to
260-687: The Palliser , Exshaw and Banff Formations , topped by the Rundle Group , which was named after the mountain. Mount Rundle illustrates the classic limestone-shale-limestone "sandwich" of the front ranges. The basal "slice of bread" is the lower massive cliffs of tough grey Pallister Formation limestones and dolomites. The "sandwich filling" is the Banff Formation, a layer of softer, more easily eroded, dark brownish-gray to black calcareous shale with thin beds of argillaceous limestone. The top layer of
286-547: The Pleistocene epoch about 2 million years ago with the sculpting and gouging of the Canadian Rockies by glaciers, and then by streams and rivers. Finally, after the glaciers retreated for the last time, a series of steep, tree-covered alluvial fans began to grow at the mouths of the deep gulches on the northeast-facing side of the mountain. Rundle rock or Rundle stone , a natural stone, first quarried on Mount Rundle,
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#1732844953252312-572: The plastic and viscous behavior of solid rock necessary to move along low angle faults. It is considered that such characteristics may be achieved at significantly less extreme conditions in the clayey rocks or evaporites , which can then act as tectonic lubricants . The process, which significantly reduces the frictional resistance, is the fluid overpressure, which acts against the normal pressure, thereby reducing high lithostatic pressures and allowing fracturation , cataclasis and formation of tectonic breccia or fault gouge that could act as
338-565: The 1840s. He introduced syllabics there —a written language developed for the Cree, as part of his missionary work. He only visited the Stoney-Nakoda of the area around what is now called Mount Rundle in 1844 and 1847. Mt. Rundle could actually be considered a small mountain range as the mountain extends for over 12 kilometres (7.5 mi), on the south side of the Trans-Canada Highway eastward from Banff to Canmore with seven distinct peaks along
364-546: The French word for tablecloth in allusion to a rumpled tablecloth being pushed across a table. Nappes or nappe belts are a major feature of the European Alps , Dinarides , Carpathians and Balkans . Since the 19th century many geologists have uncovered areas with large-scale overthrusts. Some of these were substantiated with paleontological evidence. The concept was developed by Marcel Alexandre Bertrand , who unraveled
390-751: The Rundle thrust fault and emplaced on top of the younger rocks (the Early Cretaceous Mist Mountain Formation ) that underlie Canmore and the forested slopes along the Bow River . The thrust faulting occurred during the Columbian Orogeny between late Jurassic and early Cretaceous time. At that time a collision of tectonic plates caused huge sheets of sedimentary rock in what is now British Columbia to become detached and slide eastward to northeastward over their neighbors, piling up to form
416-722: The Smith-Dorrien/Spray Trail just south of the Canmore Reservoir above Grassi Lakes . This is also the beginning of the Mount Rundle Traverse, a demanding trek to mount all of Rundle's peaks from Goat Creek parking lot to the Banff Springs Hotel. Mount Rundle is one of the most popular scrambles in the area, and is relatively straightforward for experienced hikers. In Banff, the Spray River trailhead for
442-572: The complex tectonic history of the Alps and identified the feature as nappe de charriage . He reinterpreted earlier studies by Arnold Escher von der Linth and Albert Heim in the Glarus Alps . His work in Switzerland influenced Escher and Maurice Lugeon . Several years later, nappe structure was investigated in northwestern Scotland by Charles Lapworth . Lugeon later transferred the ideas of nappes to
468-602: The first peak taking the Mount Rundle Trail, is near the Spray River bridge on the road to the Banff Springs Golf Course. The all-day hike (from 8–10 hours) from the trailhead to the peak is about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) one-way and has an elevation gain of about 993 metres (3,258 ft) to the cliff bank on the first peak and 1,579 metres (5,180 ft) to the summit. Although it is called non-technical, it
494-501: The general public. Mount Rundle Mount Rundle is a mountain in Canada 's Banff National Park overlooking the towns of Banff and Canmore, Alberta . The Cree name was Waskahigan Watchi or house mountain. In 1858 John Palliser renamed the mountain after Reverend Robert Rundle , a Methodist invited by the Hudson's Bay Company to do missionary work in western Canada in
520-617: The geologic sandwich is the grey limestones and dolomites of the Rundle Group that form the massive upper cliffs at the top of Mount Rundle. Between the Palliser and the Banff lie the thin, recessive shales of the Exshaw Formation (the "lettuce leaf" of the sandwich), covered with debris from above. The Paleozoic "sandwich" is part of the Rundle thrust sheet that was moved up from the west along
546-463: The gravitational slides along low angle faults. Gravitational forces could even be important in certain cases during emplacement of compressional thrusts. The movement of huge masses of rock may be influenced by several forces, forces that may act together or sequentially. These forces frequently result in high temperature and pressure metamorphism and strong deformation of nappe rocks. At shallower depths, low pressures and temperatures can't cause
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#1732844953252572-472: The north side of the Trans-Canada. The Banff Fairmont hotel patio and restaurants look out over Mount Rundle and Tunnel Mountain . Mount Rundle is depicted on the cover of The Ghost Inside 's album Get What You Give . Thrust sheet In geology , a nappe or thrust sheet is a large sheetlike body of rock that has been moved more than 2 km (1.2 mi) or 5 km (3.1 mi) above
598-436: The route narrows between two steep gullies. The only real obstacle at this point is perseverance at the tread-mill like scree which slows progress to a two steps forward, one step back pattern. The complete traverse from Banff to Canmore (staying always on the ridge) of the integral ridge was done "solo" in 1976 by the late Jean-Pierre Cadot. It required one bivouac, much scrambling, easy fifth-class rock climbing and one section
624-472: The southern Canadian Rockies . This left the Paleozoic strata on Mount Rundle dipping steeply to the southwest, so that the southwest-facing side of the mountain forms an extensive dip slope . Geologists consider Mount Rundle to be a classic example of a mountain cut in dipping layered rocks, with the tilted strata giving the mountain its shape. The most recent stage in the history of Mount Rundle began in
650-824: The way. The third peak southeast of Banff is the highest at 9,675 feet (2,949 m). West of the Spray Lakes road is the East End of Rundle — locally known as EEOR —which rises above Whiteman's Gap just south of Canmore. The Rundle Peaks are part of the South Banff Ranges, along with its siblings—the Sundance Range , Sulphur Mountain and the Goat Range . Mount Rundle consists of limestones , dolomitic limestones, dolomites and shales of Paleozoic ( Late Devonian to Mississippian ) age. In ascending order, they belong to
676-478: Was very involved and required lay-backing the ridge with a high degree of exposure. A long rappel was necessary to overcome a very steep section and it is most likely that the rappel station is still in place. In 2000 Dave Birrell described Mount Rundle as one of the most recognized Canadian mountains. Painter, print-maker and art teacher, Walter Phillips RCA (1884–1963) described Mount Rundle as his, "bread and butter mountain. I never tire of painting it, for it
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