Toward the end of the ice period, while its Hoffman companion continued
to grind rock-meal for coming plants, the main trunk became torpid,
and vanished, exposing wide areas of rolling rock-waves and glistening
pavements, on whose channelless surface water ran wild and free. And
because the trunk vanished almost simultaneously throughout its whole
extent, no terminal moraines are found in its canyon channel; nor, since
its walls are, in most places, too steeply inclined to admit of the
deposition of moraine matter, do we find much of the two main laterals.
The lowest of its residual glaciers lingered beneath the shadow of the
Yosemite Half Dome; others along the base of Coliseum Peak above Lake
Tenaya and along the precipitous wall extending from the lake to the
Big Tuolumne Meadows. The latter, on account of the uniformity and
continuity of their protecting shadows, formed moraines of considerable
length and regularity that are liable to be mistaken for portions of
the left lateral of the Tuolumne tributary glacier.
Spend all the time you can spare or steal on the tracks of this grand
old glacier, charmed and enchanted by its magnificent canyon, lakes and
cascades and resplendent glacier pavements.
The Nevada Glacier was longer and more symmetrical than the last, and
the only one of the Merced system whose sources extended directly back
to the main summits on the axis of the Range.
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