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Main Menu > Banff National Park > Also Nearby Waterton Lakes National Park This Excursion Comes From ... The National Geographic Traveler: Canada For more National Geographic travel guides—from Europe to Antarctica and everywhere in between—visit National Geographic Books >> Rising with dramatic suddenness directly out of the prairies of southwestern Alberta, the mountains of Waterton Lakes National Park are unique among the Rocky Mountain parks and are a world heritage area in their own right. Between 175 million and 125 million years ago, a 100-mile-long [161-kilometer-long] by 4-mile-thick [6.4-kilometer-thick] slab of ancient rock was violently uplifted and pushed 60 miles [96.6 kilometers] northeastward atop the much younger rocks of the prairies. Known as the Lewis Thrust, this extraordinary event reversed the usual geologic sequence-young rocks overlying older rocks-and explains the surprising lack of transition between prairie and mountain; in places the elevation changes 4,000 feet [1,219.2 meters] only a half mile [0.8 kilometer] from the prairie floor. More Recommendations for Banff National Park