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Glacial Boulder

Large Glacial Erratic in Canyon Area

Glacial Erratic on Canyon Rim Ski Trail in Yellowstone NP, Rocky Mountains near Canyon Village, WY

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This precambrian gneiss boulder - the size of several stacked cars and weighing over 500 tons - was carried at least 15 miles and deposited in this location by a massive glacier that once covered the Yellowstone area in thousands of feet of ice.

Nearly all of Yellowstone was covered by an ice cap 4,000 feet thick. Mount Washburn and Mount Sheridan were both completely covered by ice. This ice cap was not part of the continental ice sheet extending south from Canada. The ice cap occurred here, in part, because Yellowstone’s higher elevation volcanic plateau allowed snow to accumulate.

— National Park Service

Historical Photographs

Glacial boulder, brink of Yellowstone Canyon. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. ca. 1890. Joseph Paxson Iddings (USGS)

The boulder [shown below] stands in the forest near the brink of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, a short distance from Inspiration Point. It measures 24 feet in length by 20 feet in breadth, and stands 18 feet above the base. It was transplanted on ice to its present position from Snowy Range [now called the Beartooth Mountains].Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. ca.1890. Joseph Paxson Iddings (USGS) Published as figure 10 in U.S. Geological Survey. Folio 30. 1896.

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Glacial Erratic