Yellowstone was glaciated at least three times. These glaciations are, from oldest to youngest, the pre-Bull Lake, Bull Lake, and Pinedale. Their precise age and duration are imperfectly known, but estimates based on a few radiometric determinations are: (1) the oldest glaciation (pre-Bull Lake glaciation) began more than 300,000 years ago and ended between 180,000 and 200,000 years ago; (2) Bull Lake Glaciation began about 125,000 years ago and ended more than 45,000 years ago; (3) Pinedale Glaciation began about 25,000 years ago and ended about 8,500 years ago. The pre-Bull Lake and Bull Lake are known only from scattered deposits of rock debris (_glacial moraines_) and other features, but the distribution of these deposits indicates that glaciers were widespread throughout the region and occurred both between and during eruptions of the Plateau Rhyolite. The effects of the Pinedale glaciers, on the other hand, are obvious in many parts of the Park, and the history of this youngest glacial cycle (described below) is known in much greater detail than that of the two older ones. In the early stages of Pinedale Glaciation, an enormous icefield built up in the high Absaroka Range southeast of the Park area. A glacier, fed by this icefield, flowed northward down the upper Yellowstone valley and into the basin now occupied by Yellowstone Lake. At about the same time, another great icefield formed in the mountains north of the Park and sent long tongues of ice southward toward the lower Yellowstone and Lamar River valleys. Smaller valley glaciers flowed westward out of the Absaroka Range along the east edge of the Park, and still others formed along the main ridges and valleys of the Gallatin Range, in the northwestern part of the Park. Thus, many huge masses of ice from the north, east, and southeast converged and met in the Park. At this stage, probably about 15,000 years ago, only the west edge of the Park, and perhaps a few of the highest peaks and ridges within the Park, remained free of ice. It is interesting to note that although ice moved across and buried the ancestral Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, it did not flow down and scour the canyon (fig. 36). If it had, the canyon would look much different than it does today (fig. 41). [Illustration: GLACIATED TERRAIN along the Northeast Entrance road. The boulders, many of them measuring 10 feet across or more, were carried into the area by ice flowing down Slough Creek from mountains north of the Park during the Pinedale Glaciation. As the glaciers melted, the boulders were left stranded in hummocky, morainal deposits. Shallow depressions in the irregular topography are now commonly filled by small ponds. (Fig. 35)]