Researched route, Icefields Parkway
Icefields Parkway
A short climb off the Icefields Parkway, through open trees and up a ridge, to a burned forest and a south facing bowl under Sitting Bull.
Helen Shoulder is the broad ridge rising off the Icefields Parkway just southeast of Bow Lake, near Lake Louise. There are open trees above the road, a burned forest on its upper slopes, and a south facing bowl below a big rock called Sitting Bull. It's about 2.3 km and 590 m of climbing from the roadside to the top of the shoulder near 2,520 m: up through the trees to the Helen Lake summer trail, then up the ridge. The burn and the bowl are avalanche terrain, and in March 2014 a skier died after a size 3 slide buried them on one of the bowl's south facing paths. The route is the common, well documented way to that skiing. Where you go and what you ski there is your call. We built this route from research and haven't skied it ourselves.
We built this route from our own extensive research. All resources are cited on the dashboard. We haven't skied it ourselves, the routes illustrated may not be the best line choice, use your own judgement when planning. Remember you are still responsible for your own tour.
Last checked October 20, 2026.
| Distance | about 2.3 km to the top of the shoulder, then as many runs as you like, then about 1.5 to 2 km back to the car along the summer trail and down the glades; our line, up and back the same way, is about 4.6 km |
| Elevation gain | about 590 m |
| Slope angles | mostly 10 to 25 degrees on the line; the burn and the bowl beside the ridge mostly 25 to 37 degrees, in the 40s at the steepest; terrain data reads low |
| Trailhead | 1,937 m, at the roadside |
| High point | about 2,520 m, the top of the shoulder, from a guidebook's map and where Avalanche Canada reports were posted; terrain data reads 2,521 m |
| Nearest town | Lake Louise |
| Pass required | Parks Canada |
| Skied by us | Not yet |
From Lake Louise, take the Icefields Parkway north for about 30 km. Before Bow Lake and the Helen Lake trailhead, the road runs along the foot of a long wooded slope on your right, the east side. The start is on the shoulder below the open trees on that slope. There's no lot. A guidebook puts it about 29.5 km past the Parks Canada booth at the start of the Parkway, and its map puts it about 2.4 km short of the Helen Lake trailhead. A trip report also has it a couple of kilometres before that trailhead. Pull fully off the road.
Parks Canada asks drivers not to stop in the signed avalanche zones along the Parkway. On its map of intermittent avalanche closure zones, the nearest one covers the slopes under Dolomite Peak, from Helen Creek southeast along the road, about 2 km from the start. The start and the line are outside it. Parks Canada closes those zones when Avalanche Canada's forecast headline announces control work there. The Parkway itself closes at times for avalanche control, so check 511 Alberta before you go.
A Parks Canada pass is needed to stop anywhere in Banff National Park, and Parks Canada requires snow tires or chains on the Parkway between November 1 and March 31. There's no cell service on the Parkway. We'd leave our plan with someone who isn't coming.
The other start is the signed Helen Lake trailhead lot, about 2.4 km farther along the road, opposite the Crowfoot Glacier viewpoint. "The route" covers how that way goes.
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