Columbia Icefield Adventure vs Skywalk
Two attractions, one site, two very different tickets. What each includes, what each costs, how guests rate them, and when the cheaper one is enough.
They share a car park, a shuttle system and a ticket counter, and their names are used almost interchangeably online — which is why so many people arrive at the Columbia Icefield Discovery Centre having bought one and expecting the other. The Skywalk is a glass-floored platform over a valley. The Columbia Icefield Adventure is a coach ride onto a glacier. They are sold separately, they cost very different amounts, and guests rate them differently.
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What each one actually is
The Columbia Icefield Skywalk is an observation platform cantilevered out from the cliff face of the Sunwapta Valley, 918 feet — 280 metres — above the valley floor, with a glass floor at the outer curve. You reach it by shuttle from the Discovery Centre, then walk about a kilometre of interpretive boardwalk with panels on the geology, the fossils in the rock and the valley’s wildlife. A multilingual audio guide is included. Most people are finished inside an hour.
The Columbia Icefield Adventure is the Ice Explorer excursion. An all-terrain coach with tires tall enough to climb the lateral moraine drives directly onto the Athabasca Glacier, the largest of six outlet glaciers flowing off the Columbia Icefield. You step out onto a roped area of the ice for about twenty minutes. Meltwater runs across the surface and you can drink it.
Pursuit sells the Adventure bundled with the Skywalk, which is why “Columbia Icefield Adventure” in practice means both. It is almost never sold as a glacier ride alone.
Price, time and ratings
| Skywalk only | Skywalk + Ice Explorer | |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $37 per person | $96 per person |
| Time at the Icefield | About 1 hour | About 3 hours |
| Rating | 4.3 | 4.6 |
| Reviews | 1,036 | 3,124 |
| Ticket validity | Valid the day booked | Valid the day booked |
| Wheelchair accessible | Yes | Platform and shuttle yes |
The ratings gap is the most useful number here, and it is not noise — it sits across more than four thousand reviews between them. Both are the same operator, the same site, the same staff. What separates them is that one of them puts you on a glacier.
When the Skywalk alone is the right call
Buy the $37 ticket if any of these are true.
You are short on time. If you are driving the Parkway between Banff and Jasper in a day, an hour at the Skywalk fits and three hours may not.
The glacier does not appeal. Some visitors genuinely want the view and the engineering rather than a coach ride onto ice. That is a legitimate preference, and $59 saved.
You are travelling with someone who cannot do the Ice Explorer. The Skywalk platform and its shuttle are wheelchair accessible; the glacier excursion has its own boarding requirements. If half your group is out, the cheaper ticket keeps everyone together.
You have already walked on a glacier. If the Athabasca is not your first, the twenty minutes may not justify the difference.
When to pay for the combined ticket
Pay the $96 if you have travelled a long way to be there — which, given the Icefield is 180 km from Banff and 100 km from Jasper townsite, is nearly everyone. The marginal cost of the upgrade is small against the cost of getting there at all, and it is the half of the day that reviewers write about.
It is also the more interesting of the two for anyone with a passing interest in what they are looking at. The Athabasca Glacier has receded well over a kilometre in the last century and continues to pull back several metres a year, thinning as it goes. Standing on it while a guide points out where the ice reached in photographs their parents took is a different experience from seeing it from a viewpoint.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Skywalk included in the Columbia Icefield Adventure?
Yes. Pursuit sells the Columbia Icefield Adventure as a combined ticket that includes both the Ice Explorer excursion onto the Athabasca Glacier and entry to the Skywalk, with shuttles running between the Discovery Centre, the glacier and the platform. It is the Skywalk-only ticket that excludes the glacier, not the other way round.
Can I buy the Ice Explorer without the Skywalk?
Not as a standard product. The glacier excursion is sold bundled with Skywalk entry, which is why the combined ticket is the one most visitors compare against the Skywalk-only option.
How long does the Columbia Icefield Adventure take?
Allow around three hours for both halves: the Ice Explorer ride with roughly twenty minutes standing on the glacier, the shuttle transfers, and as long as you like on the Skywalk. The ticket is valid for the day you book, so there is no hard cut-off on the platform.
Which one is better value?
Per hour, the Skywalk. Per trip, the combined ticket — the extra $59 buys the part of the day that lifts the rating from 4.3 to 4.6, and it is a small sum next to the cost of reaching the Icefield in the first place.
Do I need to book either one in advance?
In peak season, yes. Departures leave every 15 to 30 minutes and do sell out; if your requested slot is full you are offered a later one, which is awkward if a day tour is waiting for you. Booking ahead fixes the time.
Walk on the Glacier, Then Over the Valley
The combined Pursuit ticket puts you on the Athabasca Glacier aboard an Ice Explorer and out onto the Skywalk's glass floor, with shuttles between them. Rated 4.6 by more than 3,100 guests.
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