Gem Glacier is really cool!

Gem Glacier perched high on the Garden Wall

     I find it interesting as I monitor what images folks end up loving compared to the ones that I love. Sometimes I snap a shot on the fly that I put hardly any thought or creativity into and folks just eat it up. "Likes" all over the place. Contrasted with some of the shots that I take the time and pour myself into making it something really special and it doesn't seem like anyone really thinks much of it. Maybe that has to do with this issue of me having spent my life hiking in Glacier National Park and I am familiar with some of its features to the point that I have forgotten what it is like to see it for the first time. 

     This image of Gem Glacier was the first time I had seen it from this perspective. We were on our way up to North Swiftcurrent Glacier via the Swiftcurrent Lookout spur trail and turned around to see this scene. For those of you photographers out there that care, I used my Sony G series 70-200mm 2.8 for this shot. This shot is one that I love. I mean, just look at the rugged country that my little family of mountain goats gets to explore as a part of this project! One year, I want to have someone take this picture while the Eagleton's are on that ridge in the foreground. We'll have to use radios to make it work. Any takers can leave me a comment. 

     Anyway, here's something to think about. Gem Glacier is really just an overgrown cornice. The snow blows through that notch which is just below Grinnell Mountain and stacks up all winter long creating enough of a pile-up to last through the summer months. Now picture my twin brother and I crawling around along the bottom edge of the glacier on the thin rim of rock between the terminus and the cliff below. We explored all over the terminus and even found a couple of ice caves that aren't really visible from this distance. Trust me. They are there. 

Ice cave at the terminus of Gem Glacier. You can see Salamander Glacier and above the notch which is the Grinnell Glacier Overlook (some of you will recognize that) is the pyramid of Swiftcurrent Mountain with the lookout not quite visible in this image.