Discovered on July 24, 1882 by Major Albert Bowman Rogers while working for the Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR), Rogers Pass is the pass used not only by the Canadian Pacific Railroad, but the Trans Canada Highway, as well. The Trans Canada Highway was completed through Rogers Pass on July 30, 1962.
The elevation at the summit is 1,330 metres, or 4,360 feet. This is not a particularly high summit but, due to is location and the surrounding geography it receives a tremendous amount of snow each winter, as much as 45.5 feet on nearby Mount Fidelity. As a result avalanches are an ever present and dangerous threat. The most deadly occurred on March 4, 1910, when sixty-two railway workers died when an avalanche buried a crew trying to free a train caught in a previous avalanche. Snowsheds have been built to protect both highway and railway in the most avalanche prone spots. To reduce the grade and to minimize avalanche danger, the railroad has since been rerouted through two tunnels, the Connaught Tunnel, begun on April 2, 1914 and the Mount Macdonald Tunnel, inaugurated on May 4, 1989.
At the summit is the Rogers Pass Discovery Centre, a tourist information centre and museum, not to mention a
National Historic Site. Within one will find a large relief map of Rogers Pass showing the original railway route, as it was in 1890. As the sign indicates, the scale of the map is 1:2500. Today the railway is hidden from sight, burrowing its way through the mountains it once twisted and turned around. Some of the old railbed is still extant and can be reached by a short hike from the Discovery Centre.