At the same time, valley glaciers flowed out of the mountains of British Columbia, joined forces, and formed a piedmont glacier that moved southward into Puget Sound and against the eastern edge of the Olympic Mountains. A lobe of this glacier branched off and flowed westward through Juan de Fuca Strait. This piedmont glacier, at least 3,000 feet thick, rubbed the northern edge of the Olympic Mountains and sent ice fingers up the valleys. It brought granite boulders from the north and dropped them along the way when it melted. Some of these granite boulders have been found near Camp Wilder, 25 miles up the Elwa River Valley, and as high as 3,000 feet on the side of Klahhane Ridge. As the ice moved west along the northern border of the mountains, it plowed and scraped the deepened and ancient valley that filled with water when the ice melted. This valley contains Lakes Crescent and Sutherland. These and numerous other telltale marks attest to the work of a thick ice sheet. Approximately 11,000 years have elapsed since the retreat of the last northern ice sheet from Washington. With the onset of colder climate, valley glaciers also formed in the Olympic Mountains. They flowed from high mountain cirques down the valleys, probably filling the valleys during times of greatest ice volume and becoming thinner and shorter during times of warmer climate. Like the larger ice sheets from the north, the valley glaciers of the mountains must have advanced and retreated periodically. The greatest advance was as much as 25 to 40 miles in the Hoh, Queets, and Quinault Valleys. A terminal moraine left by a glacier dams Quinault Valley and holds the lake behind it. The Shape of the Land Today Knowledge of the geological history of an area enables us to better understand the shape of the land today. It will be recalled that earth movements depressed the land on the north, south, and east, leaving the Olympic Mountains standing alone, isolated from other mountains. However, they are a segment of that elongated western fringe of mountains known as the Coast Range. In all that range the Olympics are the highest; yet, for western mountains they are not high, dominating Mount Olympus being only 7,965 feet above sea level. This is not to suggest, however, that the Olympics are small. These mountains have their base at sea level, or not much above, and viewed from any lowland position they appear impressive indeed. A mountain climb will confirm this idea of their size. The Olympics are not a single range of mountains but a profusion of peaks and ridges with intervening valleys—a mountain dome 60 miles across from north to south and east to west, cut by glaciers and numerous streams into rugged peaks and steep-walled valleys. There are nearly a hundred named peaks in Olympic National Park.