All around is the imprint of the immense ice sheet that covered the upper Midwest some 20,000 years ago. Here in the area of the Kettle Moraine State Forest two finger-like lobes of the glacier met along a northeast to southwest line. At their junction, billions of tons of sand, gravel, and rock were deposited as the ice slowly melted away 10,000 years ago. The glaciers' massive size and impact is seen from the dimensions of the kames.Within the forest the largest kame rises over 350 feet above the surrounding land area.
Other glacial features add to the unique landscape of the Kettle Moraine. Glacial streams deposited materials to form eskers by flowing through tunnels, within or beneath the ice sheet. Kettles, pit-like depressions in the earth, were formed when huge blocks of ice, buried under the glacial debris, melted away.