Glacier National Park

“ As a matter of fact, there are persons who visit Glacier National Park without seeing a single glacier, while others, although they actually see glaciers, leave the park without realizing they have seen them. This is because the highways afford only distant views of the glaciers, which from a distance appear much like mere accumulations of snow. A notable example is Grinnell as seen from the highway along the shore of Sherburne Lake and from the vicinity of the Many Glacier Entrance Station. ”

“ It is probable that the Park glaciers are not remnants of the large glaciers present during the Ice Age which terminated approximately 10,000 years ago, because it is known that several thousand years after that time the climate of the Glacier National Park region was somewhat drier and warmer than now. ”

“ Glacier remains largely unexploited, bearing still the aspect of the Earth the Indians knew for 500 generations—a land where it is yet possible to feel a sense of discovery, sense that a single man matters. On too many mountains, man has tarnished whatever he has touched; but here the land has shed, as a fir sloughs snow, a long succession of traders, trappers, explorers, hunters, surveyors, prospectors, loggers, settlers, and tourists. ”

“ In Glacier National Park these rocks, which have a maximum thickness of more than 20,000 feet, are in the form of a large syncline (downfold) , the east and west edges of which form the crests of the Lewis and Livingstone Ranges (Figure 3D) . Throughout the large area of western Montana, northern Idaho, and southern British Columbia where Belt rocks occur, they are important mountain-makers. In addition to the ranges already mentioned they are the principal rocks in many others, including the Mission, Swan, and Flathead in the region south of Glacier Park ”

“ This comparison is useful because both regions are parts of the same geological and scenic development in which Glacier may be said to be scenically, though by no means geologically, completed and the Canadian Rockies still in the making. A hundred thousand years or more from now the Canadian Rockies may have reached, except for coloring, the present scenic state of Glacier.
Glacier National Park hangs down from the Canadian boundary-line in northwestern Montana, where it straddles the continental divide. Adjoining it on the north is the Waterton Lakes Park, Canada. ”

“ These younger layers are Cretaceous shales and sandstones underlying the plains immediately east of the mountains. The mountains themselves have been carved by streams and glaciers from the Belt formations comprising the upper block of older rock, that slice of the crust which has been moved more than 15 miles toward the east. The surface over which it was pushed is the Lewis overthrust. At the time this great break occurred the part of it now exposed in Glacier National Park was deeply buried. ”

“ Glacier National Park is exceptionally rich in many kinds of wildlife. Its rugged wilderness character, enhanced by numerous lakes and almost unlimited natural alpine gardens, combine to offer an unexcelled opportunity to enjoy and study nature. ”

“ On the last few yards of the spectacular Grinnell Glacier trail all persons who make the trip to the glacier must climb over the moraine before setting foot on the ice. From this vantage point on the highest part of this moraine the visitor can look down upon a huge crevassed mass of ice lying in a stupendous rock-walled amphitheater, then merely by facing the opposite direction, he will see unfolded before his view one of the most colorful vistas in the Park. More than a thousand feet below in the head of a splendid U-shaped valley lies the turquoise gem of Grinnell Lake. ”

“ Mount Rainier is dormant; Yellowstone is dead, and Crater Lake marks the spot through which a volcano collapsed and disappeared. Rainier's usefulness as a volcanic example, however, is lost in its supreme usefulness as a glacial exhibit. The student of glaciers who begins here with the glacier in action, and then studies the effects of glaciers upon igneous rocks among the cirques of the Sierra, and upon sedimentary rocks in the Glacier National Park, will study the masters; which, by the way, is a tip for universities contemplating summer field-classes. ”

“ As a matter of fact, permanent bodies of snow and ice, large enough to deserve the name of glaciers, occur on many of our western mountain chains, notably in the Rocky Mountains, where only recently a national reservation—Glacier National Park—was named for its ice fields; in the Sierra Nevada of California, and farther north, in the Cascade Range. It is on the last-named mountain chain that glaciers especially abound, clustering as a rule in groups about the higher summits of the crest. ”

“ Finally, in the month of February, 1908, Senator Thomas H. Carter, of Montana, introduced in the United States Senate a bill establishing the Glacier National Park, to include territory visited and seen by Hugh and Jack on both slopes of the Rocky Mountains and to-day lying between the International boundary and the Great Northern Railroad on the north and south, and the Blackfoot reservation and one of the forks of the Flat Head River on the east and west. ”

“ Ancient fallen trees are disguised with blankets of moss, sprouting hemlock here and there. The rich greens that characterize Glacier’s summers seem to begin here amid the moisture-glossed leaves of twinflower, bunchberry and bead-lily.
Later, the spiders will spin thousands of kilometers of gossamer filament among the trees. The orb-weavers will hang their webs high and low, suspended in every opening. Walking through the forest then, you will see shafts of sunlight whirling in the higher webs until they seem like tops set spinning among the treetrunks. ”

“ Once the mind has grasped the outline and the processes, and the eye has learned to distinguish elements and recognize forms, the world is recreated for us.
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XIII GLACIERED PEAKS AND PAINTED SHALES Glacier National Park, Northwestern Montana. Area, 1,534 Square Miles
I To say that Glacier National Park is the Canadian Rockies done in Grand Canyon colors is to express a small part of a complicated fact. Glacier is so much less and more. It is less in its exhibit of ice and snow. Both are dying glacial regions, and Glacier is hundreds of centuries nearer the end ”

“ Some have been buried in ice which now, organized as glaciers, is wearing down their sides. Some have died of starvation and passed into the hills. Some have been blown to atoms. Only one in America, so far as known, has returned into the seething gulf which gave it birth. That was Mount Mazama.
The processes of creation are too deliberate for human comprehension. The Mississippi takes five thousand years to lower one inch its valley's surface. The making of Glacier National Park required many—perhaps hundreds—of millions of years. ”

“ Much of the park lies above timberline so that the rocks which comprise its mountains are exposed to view. Held within these superb mountains is an entertaining geologic story which they are anxious and willing to tell us. All we need to do is unlock the door with the key the geologist gives us and then go see for ourselves. Why do the mountains rise so precipitously above the plains? What is that conspicuous black band across the faces of so many of the peaks, and how did it get there? Why are some of the rocks so red? ”

“ It all happened, but unfortunately for a romantic conception, it did not happen with dramatic speed. Hundreds, thousands, sometimes millions of years intervened between the greater stages of progress which, with intervening lesser stages, merged into a seldom-broken quietude such as that which impresses to-day's visitor to the mountain-tops of Glacier National Park. ”

“ Despite this magnificence the visitor must soon turn his attention to the tremendous accumulation upon which he stands, for it is no less interesting than the mountains and lakes. Among the many 25 boulders which lie along the path are two prominent limestone blocks each 10 to 15 feet in diameter. The underside of one was grooved and polished as the ice pushed it across the rock surface underlying the glacier. The other, partially embedded in the moraine, has a polished upper surface because the glacier flowed over it for a time. ”

“ We have crossed the boundaries of several different plant-and-animal communities, spanning a range of climate that would be encountered on a 5,000-kilometer north-south journey at sea level.
At first glance the various trees, wildflowers, and animals seem randomly distributed, scattered about like the distant mountains. But mountainous terrain represents an organized high-rise approach to life. From the lowest, most protected valley to the highest wind-and-ice-cut summit, the life-forms align themselves, each according to its own climatic tolerance. ”

“ Dyson worked as a ranger-naturalist in Glacier National Park for eight summers starting in 1935.
[2] Argillite is the term used by geologists for a rock, originally a shale, which has been recrystallized or made harder by greater pressure. In external appearance it looks like shale.
[3] A dike is like a sill in all respects except that it cuts across adjacent layers instead of paralleling them.
[4] For a complete discussion of glaciers and their effects see Special Bulletin No. 2 (Glaciers and Glaciation in Glacier National Park) of the Glacier Natural History Association. ”

“ Glacier National Park has the distinction of being the foremost trail park. More saddle horses are used than in any other park or like recreational region in this country. The Glacier Park Saddle Horse Co. has available during the season about 800 saddle animals. There are nearly 900 miles of trails in this park.
At Glacier Park, Many Glacier, and Lake McDonald Hotels, Going-to-the-Sun Chalets, and Goathaunt Tent Camp, horses may be engaged or released for trips in the park, including camping trips. At Two Medicine Chalets horses may be engaged or released for local rides only. ”

“ As the former long valley glaciers enlarged their cirques by cutting farther in toward the center of the range, the latter finally was reduced to a very narrow steep-sided ridge, the arete. The imposing height of the Garden Wall can readily be determined by using the layer of diorite as a scale. The conspicuous black band formed by the edge of this layer has an average width of 75 feet. So, from the porch of the Many Glacier Hotel a Park visitor can readily see that the Garden Wall, even though five miles distant, is about 4,200 feet high. ”

“ Ki-nuk′-si Is-si-sak′-ta (Little River) August 2.
WE moved over here on Little River—or, as the whites have named it, Milk River—day before yesterday, and made camp at the lower edge of the great body of timber in which the stream has its source. We are here on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, and several miles from the boundary line of the Glacier National Park. The state game laws do not apply to the reservation, hence we have the right to hunt upon it when and where we please. ”

“ Throughout the millions of years during which the folding, faulting, and overthrusting have been taking place, the process of erosion has continued; a thousand meters of stratified rocks have been worn away, so that only a remnant of the overthrust layers can be seen today. Because Glacier’s eastern slope represents the eroded face of the overthrust block, the mountain range rises precipitously from the prairie, with no foothills breaking the abrupt transition from open prairie to mountain valley. ”

“ Altogether there are about one hundred glaciers in the Park. Most of these have an area of less than one square mile. The majority of them, of course, are mere remnants of vast glaciers. In many cases their small size is an advantage to the student. Carrying, as most of these do, the characteristics of larger glaciers, and being in a small compass and surrounded with various kinds of glacial work—moraines, lakes, and smooth rock-surfaces—they place before us, in one scene, the story of the ice age.
On every hand is evidence of glacier work. ”

“ As the ice moves it continually breaks rock fragments loose. Some of these are ground into powder as they move against each other and against the bedrock under the glacier. Most types of rock, especially the limestones and shales on which the Park glaciers rest, when ground fine enough yield a gray powder. All melt-water streams issuing from glaciers are cloudy or milky from their load of this finely ground “rock flour.”
Water from Grinnell Glacier is so laden with rock flour that the small lake along the edge of the ice into which the water pours is nearly white. ”

“ You can see the effects of their moves, and the results of the movements of the stupendous prehistoric glaciers that have vanished.
The Glacier National Park has an endless variety of small game, and in it numerous varieties of large animals are fairly [Pg 153] abundant. Most important of all is the grizzly bear. Black bears are common. So, too, are elk; and there is a scattering of moose, lions, deer, and antelopes. In some localities bighorn sheep and mountain goats are abundant. Trout abound in many lakes and streams. ”

“ Its history is similar to that of the debris cone. After a time the boulder slides off its perch, and then the mound of ice melts away.
Snow which fills crevasses and wells during the winter often melts out from below, leaving thin snowbridges in the early part of the summer. These constitute real hazards to travel on a glacier because the thinner ones are incapable of supporting a person’s weight. This is one very good reason why the inexperienced should never venture onto the surface of a glacier without a guide. ”