Читать книгу Shaped by Snow. Defending the Future of Winter онлайн

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He gave a chortle, glancing at the wildflowers near his feet.

“I guess I do love elephant’s head.”

“What does that look like?”

“Mmmm, they’re pink. Pinkish purple. Little flowers that look like elephant heads.”

I didn’t try to get any more out of him.

We made it to our destination, an alpine lake called Emerald Lake. Mount Timpanogos loomed to the west, striated cliffs and ridges imposing and magnificent. Most of the rock in this area is limestone, created during an era of heavy sedimentation. Many shallow bodies of water sprawled over the American West between three hundred and five hundred million years ago. Sediment, in some areas three miles thick, was deposited at the bottom of these seas, creating limestone, shale, and siltstone. During two ice ages that occurred thirty thousand and twelve thousand years ago, enough snow fell on this landscape that glaciers formed. They carved out the canyons of the Wasatch. Emerald Lake is one of the remaining features left by the glacier that made this mountain.