Melting Ice in Alpine Tarn. Yosemite National Park. July 8, 2005. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

This little tarn (a small alpine snowmelt pond) sits on a low ridge between Mono and Parker Passes in the Tioga Pass area of Yosemite National Park, very close to the eastern park boundary.

I happened upon this ice formation while walking cross-country between the two passes, and I stopped to take some pictures. I thought of getting out the tripod but was too lazy. That decision is usually a bad one, but not in this case. It turned out that the leftmost piece of ice fell over while I was taking the picture. It isn’t apparent here, but it an enlargement you can just see the blur as it starts to topple.