Ice-cold mineral
spring water gushes from a cave-like rock formation.
About 17 miles
south of Atlin on the Warm Bay Road, just past the warm springs.
Picnic and Camping area with plenty of fresh watercress available year-round.
The Atlin Mountain Rock Glacier is a unique geological phenomenon, representing
the dynamic effects of climactic change in the Atlin Valley over the last
8,000 years. Although not a real glacier, it behaves as a real glacier does;
flowing, deforming and advancing into the forest areas at its toe.
This "glacier" does, indeed, have some ice in it, as interstitial
ice resulting from refreezing of snow melt-water which every spring percolates
downward from the surface. At its bed the higher levels of this "glacier"
are also ice-cored where a buried remnant of old glacier ice in the upper
cirque amphitheater has been covered over with rock debris.
Atlin
Mountain/Rock Glacier
Natural
Attractions in the Atlin Area
This
is one of the most active rock glaciers in North America, its annual flow rate
being only a few millimeters a year at its toe but approx.1 meter per year in
the upper middle section, as opposed to rates of that magnitude per day on corresponding-sized
snow and ice glaciers. The frost-climate which still pertains for 10 to 11 months
a year in the basin sector further abets the rapidity of flow, by providing
a constant source of shattered fragments.
The flattish platey character of these fragments aids in the process of inter-fragment
slippage which helps in making this rock glacier have unusually rapid flow.
Other such rock glaciers are found in this region and adjoining areas of the
southwestern Yukon, but this is one of the most vigorous and spectacular.
Information from Dr. Maynard M. Miller, Foundation for Glacier and Environmental
Research, based in Atlin at the Foundation's Sub-Arctic Research Station in
the summer months.
Birch
Mountain on Teresa Island is the tallest mountain in fresh water in North America
- 4,561 feet above sea level.
Warm Springs
A small meadow pool,
fed by warm underwater springs, ringed by watercress even in the
winter months. Lovely spot for picnics. Breeding ground for north-western
toads and lake
chub. Found 15 miles out Warm Bay Road from Atlin.
Photographs
compliments of
Dannie Carson
and Chris Moser
Last updated
May 14, 2004
