Other important geological events started about a million years ago. As
the climate of the world became colder a great ice sheet formed to the
north and moved down across Canada into the United States. There were
periods when the climate warmed and the ice retreated. It advanced again
when temperatures lowered during tens of thousands of years. The sheet
moved southward at least four times during the last million years.
At the same time, valley glaciers flowed out of the mountains of British
Columbia, joined forces, and formed a piedmont glacier that moved
southward into Puget Sound and against the eastern edge of the Olympic
Mountains. A lobe of this glacier branched off and flowed westward
through Juan de Fuca Strait. This piedmont glacier, at least 3,000 feet
thick, rubbed the northern edge of the Olympic Mountains and sent ice
fingers up the valleys. It brought granite boulders from the north and
dropped them along the way when it melted. Some of these granite
boulders have been found near Camp Wilder, 25 miles up the Elwa River
Valley, and as high as 3,000 feet on the side of Klahhane Ridge.
As the ice moved west along the northern border of the mountains, it
plowed and scraped the deepened and ancient valley that filled with
water when the ice melted. This valley contains Lakes Crescent and
Sutherland. These and numerous other telltale marks attest to the work
of a thick ice sheet.
Approximately 11,000 years have elapsed since the retreat of the last
northern ice sheet from Washington.
With the onset of colder climate, valley glaciers also formed in the
Olympic Mountains. They flowed from high mountain cirques down the
valleys, probably filling the valleys during times of greatest ice
volume and becoming thinner and shorter during times of warmer climate.
Like the larger ice sheets from the north, the valley glaciers of the
mountains must have advanced and retreated periodically. The greatest
advance was as much as 25 to 40 miles in the Hoh, Queets, and Quinault
Valleys. A terminal moraine left by a glacier dams Quinault Valley and
holds the lake behind it.