Fay Glacier is the hanging glacier at the head of the Moraine Lake basin beneath Mount Fay and Mount Little. It is one of the most important unseen engines in the valley: not as famous as the lake below, but central to its colour, timing, and character.

Moraine Lake source

Moraine Lake is fed largely by snowmelt and glacial melt from the upper basin, including Fay Glacier. The glacier grinds bedrock into suspended silt, the fine rock flour that gives the lake its electric turquoise when summer inflow is strongest. Without that sediment source, Moraine Lake would still be beautiful, but it would not have the same unnatural-looking blue that made it iconic.

Setting

The glacier hangs above the back of the lake in the shadow of the eastern Ten Peaks. It is best seen from the far end of the Moraine Lakeshore trail, from higher routes toward Larch Valley, and from the approach to Consolation Lakes, where its meltwater influence is easy to read across the valley.

Sound and season

In midsummer, visitors at the back of Moraine Lake sometimes hear icefall or small avalanches from the Fay Glacier basin. Early in the season the lake can remain partly frozen while the glacier above is already sending strong meltwater into the basin. By late summer, when the lake is fully open and brightest, the glacier’s sediment signal is at its most obvious.

Photography

The glacier is less legible from the postcard Rockpile view than from the shoreline. Walk to the back of the lake and the whole hydrologic logic of Moraine becomes clearer: the enclosed headwall, the streams, the suspended silt, and the glacier itself tucked into the upper cirque.