A river ran through it. All over it. This is a tiny section of the Lituya Glacier outwash plain with the edge of the glacier in the background. Seven days before we stood here a glacier dammed lake drained catastrophically and flooded the outwash plain. The rounded black object in this photograph is a stranded iceberg from the edge of the glacier. As the river fanned out and became shallower the berg grounded out. The river, flowing from left to right, piled big rocks against the upstream side of the berg. The pit around the berg indicates the approximate size of the original berg as the water dropped. All that's left in a few more days will be the pit. We'd seen similar pits the year before. This must happen regularly... New campsite criteria: Ice pits present? Camp somewhere else! Photographer: Bill Eichenlaub