Cirques

The mountains round it will usually be cliffs, forming sometimes a perfect ring, and so called cirques, or, by the Spaniards, cooking-pots; and as one stands on the level floor of one such last highest jasse and looks up at the summit of the cliffs, one knows that one is looking at the ridge of the main chain. ❋ Hilaire Belloc (1911)

There are unusual characteristics to Pyrenean scenery, such as an absence of lakes, and dead-end walls known as cirques at the upper end of the valleys, as well as a general rarity of passes, and their extreme height. ❋ Unknown (2009)

'cirques' or 'cwms,' of which we have remarkably fine examples, is still a little mysterious -- one notes also the requirement of observation which might throw light on the erosion of previous ages. ❋ Robert Falcon Scott (1890)

Whiteness dazzled, glittered in sparks and shards of color, reached fantastic shapes heavenward; cirques, crevasses, caverns brimmed with blue. ❋ Unknown (2010)

Glaciated terrain is common and characterized by U-shaped valleys, moraines, cirques, tarns, and outwash features. ❋ Unknown (2009)

Of geologic interest are the high altitude karst landforms which have been strongly carved by glacial, hydrologic and tectonic activity resulting in U-shaped valleys, cirques and hanging valleys. ❋ Unknown (2009)

Here, moraines, cirques, and small lakes are especially common and are products of Pleistocene alpine glaciation. ❋ Unknown (2009)

Alpine Gardens drops off precipitously into two prominent glacial cirques. ❋ Unknown (2009)

Heavy glaciation has sculpted cirques and left many moraines, lakelets and bogs on the Stanley ice plateau. ❋ Unknown (2009)

There are fourteen glaciers, and a high region of U-shaped valleys, horns, cirques and arêtes. ❋ Unknown (2009)

Glacial activity has had a major influence on the development of the landscape including notable geological features such as deep canyons or kursu valleys with nearly vertical walls over 100 m in height cut by melt water, sandurs (outwash plains), boulder hollows, tundra polygons, U-valleys, glacial cirques and moraines, talus accumulations, drumlins, weathering phenomena and palsa bogs. ❋ Unknown (2008)

Evidence of Quaternary glaciation is everywhere, with stunning cirques and ice-smoothed, U-shaped valleys. ❋ Unknown (2008)

In high alpine valleys, the paths of receding glaciers are easily recognized, with almost vertical mountain sides, hanging valleys, cirques, and basin-like lakes and tarns. ❋ Unknown (2008)

Subalpine fir, lodgepole pine, whitebark pine, mountain hemlock, and alpine larch grow in rocky glacial cirques or on exposed sites as scattered trees, very open-canopied parklands, or krummholz. ❋ Unknown (2008)

There are three subzones: subglacial, from 2,000 m to 3,000 m which is unglaciated; a glaciated subzone between 3,000 m and 5,300 m, with arêtes, cirques, and U-shaped valleys with meandering rivers, and a volcanic subzone dominated by lava and volcanic ash deposited during more recent times on the cones and flanks of the three volcanoes. ❋ Unknown (2008)

Evidence of Quaternary glaciation appears in the Central and Western mountains, with few small cirques, and ice-smoothed, U-shaped valleys. ❋ Unknown (2008)

The four glacial cirques: Gavarnie, Estaubé, Troumouse and Baroude are located to the north; to the south there are three canyons and a gorge: Ordesa, Añisclo, Pineta and Escuaín. ❋ Unknown (2008)

The site, a limestone massif, is a mountain landscape with lakes, waterfalls, rocky outcrops, glacial cirques and canyons. ❋ Unknown (2008)

The cirques of Estaubé and Troumouse are separated in the south-east by a crest dominated by Munia Peak (3,133 m). ❋ Unknown (2008)

The massif play a hydrographical role as a watershed, and contains important and spectacular cirques. ❋ Unknown (2008)