Playing at the Bottom of Glacial Lake Missoula

I grew up in the small town of Pablo, Montana and as kids we played at the bottom of a lake, that was at one time, 2,000 feet deep. Covered by waters and glaciers. This huge inter mountain lake was an ice age relic, that disappeared about 13,000 years ago. Glacial Lake Missoula. Pablo is a small town in the Flathead Valley and is located directly adjacent to the Mission Range, a magnificent archipelago of alpine peaks and forests. Geologic research has shown that the massive Cordilleran ice sheet or glacier, covered even the highest peaks of the Mission Mountains, some 4,000 feet deep, as far south as the Pablo area.

The glaciers are mostly gone now except on some of the highest peaks of the Missions.

Glacial Lake Missoula was formed when the Cordilleran ice sheet moved south and blocked the Clarks Fork River near the Idaho border. A huge lake was formed behind the immense ice dam and its waters spread 200 miles to the east, with major lobes to the north and south. Lake Missoula at its peak covered 17,000 square miles, and inundated parts of several major river valleys including the Clearwater, Blackfoot, Clarks Fork, Bitterroot and the Flathead. Research has shown that this ice dam was breached by waters of Glacial Lake Missoula at least 40 times, creating huge floods the inundated eastern Washington and Oregon, following the Columbia River to the sea. This ancient lake and the ice sheets are long gone but a great deal of evidence was left in its wake, including Flathead Lake.

As kids we knew little about geography, but the traces of momentous geologic events was everywhere. Not that we cared as we were just interested in playing and exploring. There was a sandy area in our back yard and we dug pits, trenches, tunnels, piled up mounds and scraped shallow canyons. It was easy digging with nary a rock to be found. I remember many times digging furiously down through those soft layers, to see how deep I could go. The bottomless abyss. In reality my excavations probably never reached a depth of more than 4 or 5 feet, before supper interrupted mining operations. We were like a bunch of badgers rooting around and digging in the sand.

We constructed highways, bridges, tunnels, towns, forts, mountain ranges and canyons in the sand and raced our toy trucks and cars through a make believe world. These fine feats of engineering usually disappeared a few hours later, covered up by newer endeavours or simply stomped on or blown away by spurious winds.

This ocean of sand in the area around Pablo, was lain down by streams, rivers and floods from melting glacial ice or silt deposited at the bottom of lakes, which then drained away leaving a flat sandy plain.

Then there were the tunnels the older kids had dug, that were so narrow you had to belly crawl through them. These adits were dug horizontally in the soft sand and were about 8 feet below the surface, and 10-15 feet long. I was very fearful of venturing into those shafts and never lingered long in those dang, dark tombs. The soft walls and ceilings could have easily collapsed, snaring us permanently in glacial debris.

There were scattered ponds in the valley, that were formed during ancient glaciation, from huge chunks of ice left behind by retreating glaciers that melted, leaving permanent lakes. Sometimes called pot holes. The lakes and creeks abounded with fish, ducks, geese and shore birds and were a delight to explore and investigate. We plied these waters with our home made fishing poles, pursing devious cutthroat trout and in the winter dusted off our ice skates and spent many hours gliding and sliding on the thick ice.

In the winter we would snow sled at a place we called Big Mountain, after the ski hill up north at Whitefish. Our sledding hill was a series of small mounds which were probably glacial moraines; areas of rock and sand literally bulldozed up by ancient glaciers. The hills were heavily forested with dark green Ponderosa pine, and a couple of miles to the west, rose the foothills of the Mission Range.

The Mission Mountains shadowed over us with its towering peaks, ridges, glacial horns, cirque valleys and rushing clear water streams that roared down white water rapids. Glorious stands of pine and fir covered the mountains and parts of the valley floor and many a youthful expedition traversed the hidden glades and towering stands of yellow pine.

Cataclysmic geologic events sculpted the Flathead Valley and surrounding mountains and created a wondrous landscape and it was an incredible place to come of age. I probably still have glacial silt embedded in some of my toys that have survived my childhood and many fond memories of romping at the bottom of ancient lakes.