Glaciers are perhaps one of the more mysterious features of the Park. The name adorns many of the features, including: Glacier Creek, Falls, Gorge, Ridge, Knobs. Although there are a few living glaciers in the Park at the highest elevations, they certainly can't demand the respect today that the early glaciers do enjoy. The evidence of their existence is all around us in the Park.
A glacier is a large river of ice built up over many years, often thousands of years, from falling snow. As snow hits the glacier, it turns to ice, and millimeter at a time, grows taller. Its own weight compacts the ice and creates a huge earth moving machine responsible for creating valleys and sharp peaks as we see around us. Glaciers are often several thousand feet deep and several miles long.
In the Park, glaciers were formed from 150,000 to 20,000 years ago, in several stages, growing and shrinking with the climate changes. Two of the large glaciers are the Thompson Glacier, responsible for carving Morain Park and Forest Canyon, and Bartholf Glacier, responsible for Glacier Gorge, Hallett Peak, Loch Vale, the Colorado River, and others.
Today, seven small glaciers reside in the Park, the largest of these being Andrews Glacier, between Otis and Taylor peaks, hanging to the Continental Divide. Tyndall Glacier is another and is visible between Hallett and Flattop peaks from several places in the Park. #
