MOUNTAINS ARE MAGNETS for Adventurous Spirits

What Makes the Rockies So Captivating?

Look around Fernie- sharp peaks, some 12,000 years ago, life returned— deep valleys, and a sense of wildness first simple plants, then forests, draw the eye. But the story begins far wildlife, and entire ecosystems. beneath your feet.

People came too. The Ktunaxa lived Millions of years ago, this was a flat here for thousands of years, followed landscape of seas, rivers, and swamps. by settlers in the late 1800s drawn by Layer by layer, sediments hardened coal and opportunity. Today, the draw into rock. Then, between 120 and 60 of this place continues. Some come million years ago, the Pacific Plate to work, others for the lifestyle. Many pushed beneath the North American stay for something harder to describe, Plate, crumpling and lifting these a way of life shaped by mountains, layers into the Rocky Mountains. seasons, and a deep connection to the natural world.

Erosion shaped what was exposed. Wind, water, and glaciers carved Today, the Rockies captivate and valleys and sharpened peaks, especially attract us not just for their beauty, but over the past two million years. When for their story and the feeling of being the massive glaciers started melting part of it.

How the Rockies Formed

Ancient Seafloor Sediments

750 to 180 million years ago

MUD

LIME MUD

Collision Builds Mountains

180 to 60 million years ago

Collision with Pacific ocean plate ancient mounta in surface

SAND

North America moves west

Uplift and Erosion

60 million years ago to today- a young landscape

Geological graphics source material: GeoTour Guide for the East Kootenay, British Columbia