Glaciers carry a lot of debris. That’s pretty much all they’re good for is picking up loose stuff that’s lying around (dirty socks?) transporting it a ways and depositing it in piles and layers miles away. My favorite bit of debris is the famous Glen Boulder. For me, this is proof that an enormous glacier passed through here. I don’t think there is any other force of nature that could move a boulder 16 feet high by 12 feet across into this delicate and precarious position high on a shoulder of Mt. Washington. And I’d like a dollar for every person that’s thought of, or actually attempted to, tip it over and get it rolling down the mountain where it would land smack in the middle of Route 16. Everything short of dynamite has been employed to get this rock to go end over end, careening down the mountain, but it’s quite happy where it is. Anyway, its typical of the kinds of things glacier carry around. There are hundred of erratics in New Hampshire, some much larger than the Glen Boulder. There is a spectacular, jaw dropping erratic near the summit of Mt. Moriah next to the trail, and, of course, Madison Boulder in Madison, NH, is easily the size of a house.
Friday, December 19, 2008
The Glen Boulder, a famous glacial erratic on Mt. Washington, NH, 2006
Glaciers carry a lot of debris. That’s pretty much all they’re good for is picking up loose stuff that’s lying around (dirty socks?) transporting it a ways and depositing it in piles and layers miles away. My favorite bit of debris is the famous Glen Boulder. For me, this is proof that an enormous glacier passed through here. I don’t think there is any other force of nature that could move a boulder 16 feet high by 12 feet across into this delicate and precarious position high on a shoulder of Mt. Washington. And I’d like a dollar for every person that’s thought of, or actually attempted to, tip it over and get it rolling down the mountain where it would land smack in the middle of Route 16. Everything short of dynamite has been employed to get this rock to go end over end, careening down the mountain, but it’s quite happy where it is. Anyway, its typical of the kinds of things glacier carry around. There are hundred of erratics in New Hampshire, some much larger than the Glen Boulder. There is a spectacular, jaw dropping erratic near the summit of Mt. Moriah next to the trail, and, of course, Madison Boulder in Madison, NH, is easily the size of a house.
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