About a dozen small rapidly dwindling glaciers exist today in shaded
reentrants high in the Teton Range. They are probably vestiges of ice
masses built up since the climatic optimum, during the so-called
“_Little Ice Age_.” These glaciers, while insignificant compared to
those still present in many other mountain ranges, are fascinating
working models of the great ice streams that shaped the Tetons during
Pleistocene time.
The Teton Glacier (fig. 6) is one of the best known. It is an ice body
about 3,500 feet long and 1,100 feet wide that lies at the head of
Glacier Gulch, shaded by the encircling ridges of the Grand Teton, Mount
Owen, and Mount Teewinot. Ice in the central part is moving at a rate of
more than 30 feet a year.