The Tahoma Glacier is a long

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...

mostly on the western flank of

Mount Rainier Mount Rainier (), indigenously known as Tahoma, Tacoma, Tacobet, or təqʷubəʔ, is a large active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest, located in Mount Rainier National Park about south-southeast of Seattle. With a s ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

. It covers and contains of ice. The glacier starts out near the summit of the volcano at over . As the glacier flows west-southwest out of the summit area, it cascades down a steep rocky face as an

icefall An icefall is a portion of certain glaciers characterized by relatively rapid flow and chaotic crevassed surface, caused in part by gravity. The term ''icefall'' is formed by analogy with the word ''waterfall'', which is a similar phenomenon of t ...

from to , where the glacier is connected to the South Mowich Glacier to the north in the Sunset Amphitheater. As the glacier drops below , it broadens and joins the smaller South Tahoma Glacier. After the broad expanse of ice at over , the Tahoma Glacier narrows as it descends around the rocky Glacier Island, a sub-peak of Rainier once fully encircled by both the South Tahoma and Tahoma Glaciers. Leaving the bottleneck in the glacier, the glacier splits; the larger, longer northern arm continues flowing west-southwest and terminates at around . The southern arm flows south towards the arm of the South Tahoma Glacier, but this arm terminates before it rejoins the South Tahoma at . Meltwater from the glacier is the source of the South

Puyallup River The Puyallup River ( ) is a river in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. About long, it is formed by glaciers on the west side of Mount Rainier. It flows generally northwest, emptying into Commencement Bay, part of Puget Sound. The ...

and Tahoma Creek, a tributary of the

Nisqually River The Nisqually River is a river in west central Washington in the United States, approximately long. It drains part of the Cascade Range southeast of Tacoma, including the southern slope of Mount Rainier, and empties into the southern end of Pu ...

References

{{Authority control Glaciers of Mount Rainier Glaciers of Washington (state)

See also

References