Audio
Going-to-the-Sun Road: Bird Woman Falls
Transcript
[Narration] From this spot visitors often confuse the series of cascades on Haystack Creek directly in front of them for Bird Woman Falls, but Bird Woman Falls is actually the 492-foot drop across the valley between Mount Oberlin on the left, and Mount Canon on the right. Notice the broad “U” shaped bowl above the waterfall and then look down to the valley to the right and notice the same broad “U” shape, both features are the results of glaciers.
Ice age glaciers that flowed down the valleys here ground and carved the landscape. The Lake McDonald Valley shows the familiar rounded bottom of a valley that was created by a glacier. Ice up to 3,000 feet thick filled this area as recently as 12,000 years ago. Smaller glaciers tucked high into the mountains ground away and created bowl like depressions called cirques and hanging valleys like you see immediately above Bird Woman Falls.
A hanging valley is created when one of the smaller glaciers meets one of the larger valley glaciers. It can’t carve as quickly as it’s massive cousin and so creates a smaller hanging valley up on the mountain. Look for these features throughout the park often since they generally end in a cliff, hanging valleys have impressive waterfalls pouring out of them. Bird Woman Falls was once fed by an active glacier in the cirque above but today there is merely a snowfield to feed the waterfall. In especially dry years Bird Woman Falls dries up by fall.
Description
Bird Woman Falls sits between Mount Oberlin and Mount Cannon on the west side of Glacier National Park. Visitors who travel along Going-to-the-Sun Road get spectacular views of this ever changing beauty.
Duration
1 minute, 38 seconds
Credit
Glacier National Park
Date Created
08/05/2015
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