The most badass sculptor on earth. If you’ve ever seen Yosemite or Kings Canyon, you know this to true. Thousands of sheer feet of granite. Rock formations that boggle the mind. Cathedrals. Castles. Spires. Carved by raw strength, the power of water’s most cataclysmic form: glacier.

If you weren’t impressed by a river’s ability to carve a deep valley; if you ever underestimated the strength of innocent, giggly water, water in the form of a glacier will make you think again.

A glacier is “a perennial mass of ice which moves over land.” It is this moving, this slow melting and shifting, that has cut and formed some of the most beautiful places on earth. Yosemite and Kings Canyon are great examples of glacier carved valleys. John Muir figured this one out. No one could understand why most valleys were shaped like V’s, but Yosemite and King’s Canyon were shaped like U’s with massive flat valley floors and sheer cliffs of rock.

After volcanic action formed the granite of these canyons, unfathomably large glaciers began their sculpting work, melting and expanding, melting and shifting, cutting and exposing until the expansive canyons we know today were formed.

Interesting bits and pieces about glaciers: English folks pronounce glacier “glass-e-ar.” Cryosphere is the word that describes the portion of earth where water is in solid form. And one of my favorites: tidewater glaciers are glaciers that terminate at the ocean. As they reach the sea, pieces of them break off, or calve. In other words, tidewater glaciers give birth to icebergs.

Glaciers are also the largest reservoir of fresh water on earth. This is why they come into the global warming conversation all the time. We’ve all heard the one that if a particular glacier in Greenland melted, the sea would rise 20 feet. There are other glaciers or ice sheets that would cause the sea to rise 165 feet if they melted. So we should probably do our best to respect their strength. And admire their handywork.

Kings Canyon pic: James Kovacs

Pic below courtesy of wikipedia: the flowing Baltoro Glacier in Pakistan.