The ice from the Beartooth and Absaroka centers of ice accumulation converged in the northeastern part of Grand Teton National Park and flowed south along the face of the Teton Range in a giant stream that in many places was 2,000 feet thick ([fig. 57]). All but the highest parts of the Pinyon Peak and Mount Leidy Highlands were buried and scoured. Signal Mountain, Blacktail Butte, and the Gros Ventres Buttes were overridden and shaped by ice at this time. Another glacier, this one from the Wind River Range, flowed northwest along the Continental Divide, then down the Gros Ventre River Valley, and merged with the southward-moving main ice stream west of Lower Slide Lake. Where Jackson Hole narrows southward, the glacier became more and more confined, but nevertheless flowed all the way through the Snake River Canyon and on into Idaho.
Figure 58. Glacial deposits, outwash, and loess exposed along Boyle Ditch in Jackson Hole National Elk Refuge. Indicated are middle Pliocene Teewinot formation (A), oldest till (B), Bull Lake outwash gravel (C), and post-Bull Lake loess (D), which here contains snail shells dated by Carbon-14 as 15,000 years old. Height of cliff is about 30 feet.
The volume of this great ice mass was probably considerably more than 1,000 cubic miles. When it melted, nearly all the previously accumulated soil in Jackson Hole was washed away and a pavement of quartzite boulders mantled much of the glaciated surface. In areas not subsequently glaciated, the lack of soil and abundance of quartzite boulders drastically influenced the topography, later drainage, distribution of all types of vegetation, especially conifers and grass, and the pattern of human settlement and industry.
Figure 59. View west from the Snake River overlook showing at upper right the Burned Ridge moraine (with trees) merging southward with the highest (oldest) Pinedale outwash plain. The next lower surface is composed of outwash from the Jackson Lake moraine which lies to the right, out of the picture. At the bottom is Deadman’s Bar, a gravel deposit at the present river level. Photo by H. D. Pownall.
The second glaciation, named Bull Lake, was less than half as extensive as the first. A large tongue of ice from the Absaroka center of accumulation flowed down the Buffalo River Valley and joined ice from the Tetons on the floor of Jackson Hole. An enormous outwash fan of quartzite boulders extended from near Blacktail Butte southward throughout most of southern Jackson Hole. Glaciers in the Gros Ventre Mountains did not advance beyond the east margin of the valley floor. Carbon-14 ages and data from weathered obsidian pebbles suggest that this glaciation took place between 35,000 and 80,000 years ago.
Bull Lake moraines and outwash deposits are overlain directly in the southern part of Jackson Hole by fine silt, rather than by deposits of the third glaciation ([fig. 58]). This silt, of windblown origin, is called loess and contains fossil shells dated by Carbon-14 as between 13,000 and 19,000 years old. Wherever the loess occurs, it is marked by abundant modern coyote dens and badger burrows.
Figure 60. Air oblique view west toward the Teton Range, showing effects of Pinedale Glaciation on the landscape. Mt. Moran is at top left; the mountain front is broken by U-shaped valleys from which ice emerged into the area now occupied by Jackson Lake. The timbered area bordering Jackson Lake is the Jackson Lake moraine. One of the braided outlet channels breaching the Jackson Lake moraine can be seen crossing the outwash plain at the left center. Lakes at lower right occupy “potholes” near where the 9,000-year-old snail shells occur. Snake River is in foreground. Photo by R. L. Casebeer.