Polson Moraine Traditional Cache
Hidden : 7/2/2010
Difficulty:
1 out of 5
Terrain:
1.5 out of 5

Size: Size: small (small)

Join now to view geocache location details. It's free!

Watch

How Geocaching Works
Looking for a different adventure?

Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions in our disclaimer.

Geocache Description:

Polson Moraine cache is located at the top of Polson Hill alongside the walking path that replaced the old Montana Rail Link Railroad. Polson Hill was formed by the terminal moraine of the glacier that pushed it's way down the Flathead Valley during the last ice age.

The cache can be accessed by foot or bicycle from the top of Polson hill.
Park at the northern end of Commerce Drive (N 47° 40.065', W114° 06.504'). Head north along the trail.
Cache contains a pencil and log book and is big enough for small items.
Below is a geological history of this area which explains how Polson Hill was formed.

During the last ice age, an enormous glacier filled the Rocky Mountain trench. Ice poured off the neighboring mountains and down their valleys. They filled it from wall to wall with a mighty river of ice thousands of feet thick and 20 or more miles wide.
As the ice age continued, the monstrous glacier slowly pushed south through the Flathead Valley where the north end of the Mission Range split it like a wedge diverting one branch into the Swan Valley and the other into the Mission Valley.
The branch that went down the Mission Valley made it to the vicinity of Ninepipes Reservoir, where the ice was so deep that it completely buried the Mission Range about as far south as Ronan. That explains why the range is so smoothly rounded north of the Ronan area and so rough and craggy south of there. The contrast is really quite striking.

The big moraine at Ninepipes is especially conspicuous because it contains hundreds of little lakes and ponds full of ducks. Each little lake and pond marks a place where a chunk of ice was once buried in the moraine and then later melted leaving a depression.
After the moraines had formed, the climate changed slightly and the ice front melted back a few miles. New moraines formed just south of Polson in the Mission Valley.
The Polson moraine is especially easy to see because it forms a prominent ridge across the valley. People driving north on Highway 93 get their first view of Flathead Lake just as they reach the crest of the Polson moraine. Nobody forgets it!

The large size of the Polson moraine suggests that the ice front must have remained at that position for quite a few years. During the summers of those years, glacial melt water washed loads of sand and gravel through old stream channels across that moraine and spread them across the valley floor to the south.

Excerpts from “A Freak Preserved by an Accident: The Making of Flathead Lake”
by David Alt

Additional Hints (No hints available.)

Advertising with Us