Carrie Glacier
Although the Carrie is closest, there are many more glaciers in the mountains beyond.
Glaciers thrive in a climate of perpetual snow. Olympic weather
is ideal for glacier-making. Damp Pacific air forced over sudden
coastal mountains cools rapidly; its moisture condenses, freezes
and falls. As blizzard follows blizzard, the snowflakes transform
to ice. Then a strange thing happens; when the ice becomes deep
enough the inanimate crystals align, lock together, and begin to
move.
Signs of motion are visible from here. As the glacier flows across
steep or uneven terrain, its surface cracks into blue-green
crevasses sometimes two hundred feet deep. Gray color
along the edge is rock plucked and gouged from
the mountainside.
Don't miss the rest of our virtual tour of Olympic Mountains National Park in 646 images.