A glacier is a dynamic system of ice, and water. It interacts with the atmosphere by taking precipitation (snow) then, over years of freezing and thawing, converting that snow to firn, it produces a fluid field of ice. Glaciers move quickest in their mid-sections on the surface. They move slowest underneath the ice and along the their sides where the ice comes in contact with the rock surfaces and is slowed by friction. Some glaciers may move at 1 to 2 inches per year. Ice under the surface flows like a plastic material. On the surface of the ice, above the areas of rockfalls, and where the glacier "hangs" up on the surface underneath, crevasses open up.

Glaciers accumulate snow in the Zone of Accumulation. This is where snow fall exceeds evaporation. In the Zone of Ablation, below the zone of accumulation, evaporation exceeds accumulation and it is here where the glacier begins to melt.

Material being pushed along by the glacier produces moraines. This material accumulates in un-sorted fashion along the sides of the glacier and at its (bottom) terminus) Outwash materials from the glacier, in contrast, are sorted materials. These materials are born by water flowing off and out from underneath the glacier.

As the glacier advances and retreats it is continually plucking rocks from the ground below it and making abrasions on my resistant rock that it is sliding over. At the headwall, the upper end of the glacier next to the cirque, steep arétes form, low lying saddles or passes called cols (khals) form as multiple systems grind back into the head wall base.