We have been able to relax some while on our working vacation in Montana. This photo is of the glacial valley of Rock Creek, near Red Lodge in the Beartooth Mountains. This is a classic U-shaped glacial valley, featured in many introductory Earth Science textbooks (though usually from a different location). Note the hanging valley near the center of the image, where a smaller glacier joined with the the larger glacier. The Precambrian metamorphic rocks in this area are among the oldest on the earth, dated to over three billion years old by geologists.

We got to this location by mountain bike. Being on the edge of the almost million-acre Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness Area, we had the valley mostly to ourselves.

Image © Kevin Nelstead

Grace and Peace