Figure 9. The scenic lookout on the South Ridge trail is from this smooth, rounded outcrop of pegmatite. During the last Ice Age, glacier ice covering the whole of New England flowed southward toward the Gulf of Maine. The moving ice gradually eroded the underlying bedrock to produce shapes like the one seen here, with a gently-sloped northern side (to the right in this photo), and a steeper southern side (to the left). All of the steep cliffs and bluffs on Bradbury Mountain face to the southeast, in the direction that the glacier ice moved.

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Last updated on September 3, 2008

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