Desert Glacier

High in the desert mountains of the Basin and Range country one find peaks reaching above 12,000 feet, mountainsides filled with aspen and glacial carved valleys.  Yes, what is a dry desert region today has glacial carved valleys.  If you look close you might find that a few actually still contain glaciers.

Yes.  A glacier.  In Nevada.

Not something you would expect.  A holdover relic from the last ice age that somehow still survives today.

Before you go thinking it is a giant wall of ice, it is not.  You mainly see a large rocky mound, but it is not a rock slide.  It is not a talus or scree field either.  It is a glacier covered in rock.

Technically they are Rock Glaciers.  The current warm climate we live in has melted the surface ice and covered the remaining ice with rock.  However it still moves and acts like a glacier with a rocky surface.  

I explored one on a fine October morning.  The aspen leaves had fallen for the season and winter was fast approaching in the high country.  It was cold enough to make one forget you are in a desert.  The trail wound up past the aspen and pines until it reached more barren mountainsides.  Here one finds Bristlecone Pines.  Another ice age relic, they lives in harsh environments in the high country of the west.  They are considered to be the oldest living things on the planet with trees that are thousands of years old.

The valleys are U shaped, a sign of glacial carving.  Note, a river cuts a valley like a V, a glacier like a U with steeper sides.  As I get close to the cirque (end of the valley) I can make out a large mound of rocks pushed up like a sphinx in the middle of the valley.  It is the glacier.  I hike along it and across it.

There are scree fields and talus slopes along the side walls of the valley but the glacier is distinct.  I can imagine in an ancient climate that was wetter and cooler how it fed a river that flowed into Lake Bonneville.  Now it clings to the side of a 12,000 foot peak waiting for the next ice age.

Glacier center, Talus left

It is an impressive location and hike.  I like finding spots like this.  It is something significant yet unknown.  Few people know about it and fewer will see it.

I hope to make it back here sometime at the peak of autumn color and visit again.