Just beyond the Aialik glacier and the harbor seals on our Alaskan boat tour, there were several very small waterfalls and this somewhat larger one. They are formed by runoff from the glacier itself as well as the rain that is common to the area. Glaciers appear stable, but actually they are not at all. They are constantly freezing and melting and moving over the surrounding land. Some melting may well be secondary to global warming, but it is also part of a natural process and the waterfalls are very nice side effect. Most of the falls around Aialik weren’t much more than trickles, but this one was a little more substantial. One of the things that I found to be really remarkable about this entire region was the colorful vegetation living right beside the icy glaciers. I’ve lived in snowy regions before, but most of the time there are smaller patches of snow and ice surrounding larger ones, even during the spring melt. But in the glacial habitat you have this huge chunk of ice surrounded by all this green, thriving vegetation and no other snow in sight (of course that’s not true during the winter). It’s a surprising and beautiful contrast.