Paradise Road: Glacier View Exhibit Panel

Stop along the Paradise Road for a view of the Nisqually Glacier.

NPS Photo

Quick Facts

Location:

Paradise Road

Amenities

3 listed

Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits, Parking - Auto, Scenic View/Photo Spot

Title: River of Ice

Main Text
At this distance, the Nisqually Glacier appears motionless. But the scene is full of evidence that the ice is constantly moving. Like rapids in a stream, crevasses form where the glacier flows over uneven ground - a knob or ridge in the bedrock. 

Moraines, dark rubble along the sides of the glacier that often disguise the glacier's full extent, and surface debris are fragments of the mountain. Quarrying the slopes with ice hundreds of feet thick, and filled the lower valleys with loose rock and rivers of meltwater, the Nisqually and other glaciers are continually altering the face of Mount Rainier. 

Secondary Text
Glaciers are different from other fields of ice and snow because they flow downhill like a river in slow-motion. Buried beneath many winters of heavy blizzards, the snow becomes compressed and aligned for motion.

Exhibit Panel Description
A single photo of Mount Rainier with the Nisqually Glacier curving down its slopes fills the exhibit panel. The main text stretches across the top third of the photo, over the summit of the mountain and against a blue sky. A small photo overlaps the main photo to the right of the main text with the secondary text tucked above the photo in the upper right corner of the panel. The photo shows a detail of a glacier broken by large crevasses. Several climbers, no bigger than tiny black dots, skirt one of the crevases. A caption at the top of the photo reads "Crevasses dwarf a group of climbers." A second small photo overlaps the main photo in the lower left side of the panel. In the photo, two people stand next to the terminus of a glacier, a wall of dirty ice with a river flowing out from underneath the ice. A caption at the top of the photo reads "Nisqually River originates from the terminus of the Nisqually Glacier. A small box in the lower right corner of the exhibit panel reads "User Fee Project. Your Fee Dollars at Work. Entrance fees were used to produce this exhibit".

Visit This Exhibit Panel
This exhibit panel is located in a pullout along the road to Paradise, about five miles uphill from the Ricksecker Point Road, overlooking the Nisqually River valley and glacier. The Paradise Road is open year-round, but closes nightly during the winter.