Kelleys Island Holds Ohio's Most Remarkable Ice-Age Relic

Kelleys Island, in Lake Erie, holds one of Ohio's most remarkable geological relics: massive grooves gouged into solid limestone by glaciers during the last ice age. The Glacial Grooves, among the largest such formations easily accessible anywhere, are a tangible record of forces almost impossible to imagine.

Standing before the grooves, a visitor confronts deep time made visible — furrows carved by a mile-thick sheet of ice grinding across the bedrock tens of thousands of years ago. It is the kind of sight that recalibrates one's sense of scale.

The island around them makes an easy, low-key getaway, reached by ferry and small enough to explore by bike or cart. But the grooves are the reason to make the trip, a quiet monument to the ice that shaped the whole Great Lakes region.