Nearly five billion years ago, a great ball of cosmic gasses began to cool and condense, forming the solar system. This cooling process continued for 3½ billion years, solidifying Earth and eventually forming the first continental glaciers. During the Paleozoic Era, warm climates caused glacial melting that covered most of the planet with water. Pressures forced great quantities of magma to erupt from the depths of the Earth, creating land masses and huge mountains. Over the next 150 million years, weathering and erosion removed thousands of feet of overlaying sediments, exposing much of the granite roots of these White Mountains. In the last million years, several glaciers crept southward from the Arctic, further eroding and fracturing the landscape. Fifty thousand years ago, the last of these enormous ice sheets rose to a height of more than a mile as it passed over the mountains above. The force of this ice loosened and deposited granite boulders from the east side of Mt. Haycock, forming the prominent cliff above. The top of this peak, being badly fractured when the glacier receeded, cracked and loosened, adding to the boulder deposit at its base. Thus fourteen to twenty thousand years ago, this random deposit of boulders formed the passages of what today we call The Polar Caves.

Photo: Anton Schwarzmueller

Photo: Anton Schwarzmueller

Groton, New Hampshire · USA