The steep, west face of Chancellor Peak is most impressive, looming over 6500 feet (2000 metres) above the Kicking Horse Valley. It appears suddenly as one travels east on Highway #1 and its presence makes it clear that the big peaks of the Canadian Rockies have been reached. Of this view, James Outram wrote, "The Chancellor, that mighty pyramid from whose frowning precipices, black and forbidding, loom aloft nigh upon 7,000 feet above the Kicking Horse River cannot fail to impress the traveller with a sense of awe and grandeur, as he approaches eastward from the grim gateway of the lower canyon."