Kicking Horse Pass Weather & Road Conditions

No full closures are reported on Kicking Horse Pass as of Sep 20, 2026 6:33 AM MDT, and no lane closures or roadworks either. Always check with DriveBC before setting off.

Kicking Horse Pass Winter Tire & Chain-Up Requirements

Kicking Horse Pass is on a designated winter tire and chain route. Winter tires are required on it every year from October 1 to April 30, whatever the forecast on the day, and commercial vehicles carry chains and put them on at the chain-up signs. What is in force right now — a chain-up in effect, a closure — this page does not carry; DriveBC ↗ is the authority before you set off. The rule in full, with the fines and the exceptions, is on the British Columbia page.

What this page can tell you is the surface at the summit, from radar and surface analysis: currently dry, with the road surface estimated at 1°C. The road surface figure is an estimate derived from air temperature, not a measurement — bridges and overpasses run colder than the number shown.

Kicking Horse Pass Weather Forecast: Next 6 Days

At the summit, 1,627 m. Each day shows its warmest and coldest hour, and the worst driving conditions forecast anywhere in it — not the average, because the hour that closes a pass is the one worth knowing about.

1. Rest of today Sep 20

   

   16°C 4°C

   Dry

   Wind to 10 km/h

2. Mon Sep 21

   

   15°C 4°C

   Dry

   Wind to 14 km/h

3. Tue Sep 22

   

   13°C 3°C

   Moist

   Wind to 13 km/h
   0.2 mm precipitation

4. Wed Sep 23

   

   12°C 2°C

   Ice worst around 6 AM

   Wind to 13 km/h
   0.8 mm precipitation

5. Thu Sep 24

   

   11°C 0°C

   Slush worst around 4 AM

   Wind to 10 km/h
   2.4 mm precipitation

6. Fri Sep 25

   

   3°C 1°C

   Ice worst around 8 PM

   Wind to 7 km/h
   10.8 mm precipitation

Forecast, not a measurement — from the same weather service that draws this page's radar and road colors, model run 6 hours ago. Days run on Mountain time, the clock the pass keeps — not the reader's.

The climb to Kicking Horse Pass

Where each approach starts, how far below the summit, and how much road the climb takes. The starting points are DriveBC cameras, so the elevations are the province's own; the distances are measured along the highway's line. Snow at the summit and rain at the start is the normal state of this road for half the year, and the table says how far apart the two are.

Why Kicking Horse Pass closes

The canyon below it more than the pass itself. Kicking Horse Pass is the highest point on the Trans-Canada, 1,627 m on the Continental Divide at the Alberta line, but the road to it from Golden runs up the Kicking Horse Canyon, a narrow, slide-prone gorge that the province has spent two decades rebuilding to four lanes; the last phase closed the highway completely for seventeen days in the autumn of 2023 and sent everything round by Radium. In winter the closures are for crashes on the grades and for rockfall in the canyon, and the detour is the same one.

The dated closures, with the province's own releases for each, are on the Highway 1 page.

If Kicking Horse Pass is closed

• Highways 95 and 93 through Radium Hot Springs — about 1 h 55 min longer than the direct road when both are open, 227 km against 128 km for the Kicking Horse Canyon and Kicking Horse Pass. South down the Columbia valley to Radium, then over Sinclair Pass and Vermilion Pass in Kootenay National Park to Castle Junction on Highway 1 in Alberta. The province's own detour for the canyon closures.

Distances and times are measured over openrouteservice on a clear road, and a closure day is not one: the detour carries the closed road's traffic too. Whether the pass is open right now is on DriveBC ↗.

Kicking Horse Pass by the month

Thirty-year normals from the nearest Environment and Climate Change Canada station with a full record: Golden Airport, 51 km away and 842 m below the summit. The pass runs colder than these figures — roughly 0.6 °C per 100 m — and turns more of the same precipitation into snow. Averages for 1981–2010; a normal month, not this month.

Source: Environment and Climate Change Canada, Canadian Climate Normals 1981–2010, station GOLDEN A (1173210), 785 m, through the MSC GeoMet API.

Related Roads

Kicking Horse Pass Road Weather FAQ

Is Kicking Horse Pass open right now?

No full closures are reported on Kicking Horse Pass. No lane closures or roadworks are reported either.

What are Kicking Horse Pass road conditions today?

The map on this page colors the route along Kicking Horse Pass by what is on the pavement right now — dry, wet, slush, snow or ice — from radar and surface data, last updated Sep 20, 2026 6:33 AM MDT. Right now temperatures run from 0°C to 6°C and the strongest wind is 5 km/h.

Do I need chains on Kicking Horse Pass today?

In a car, no. Kicking Horse Pass is on a designated winter tire route: winter tires are required on it from October 1 to April 30, and chains are what commercial vehicles carry and put on at the chain-up signs. A chain-up in effect or a closure is posted on the signs and on DriveBC. What this page can tell you is that the surface at the summit is dry, and the road surface is estimated at 1°C.

What is the weather forecast for Kicking Horse Pass this week?

At the summit, Sep 20 to Sep 25: highs 3-16°C, lows 0-4°C. Snow or ice is forecast on the road Wed, Thu and Fri. It is a forecast rather than a measurement, and the later days are less certain than the earlier ones.

How often are Kicking Horse Pass road conditions updated?

The road surface and weather layers are rebuilt whenever this page is opened with data more than ten minutes old, and refreshed on a schedule in between, so nothing here is more than about two hours old even on a road nobody has looked at. Closures and road blocks are re-imported from DriveBC every fifteen minutes. Every section on this page carries the time its data was fetched.