Mount Olympus occupies a central position on the Peninsula. To the west the ridges descend gradually and merge with the coastal plain which varies from a few to 20 miles in width. The eastern half of the Olympics maintains a high elevation all the way to the eastern edge. There they drop steeply to Hood Canal, an arm of Puget Sound, leaving but little lowland on that side of the Peninsula. The mountains end abruptly on the north side, too, but with some foothills between them and the shores of Juan de Fuca Strait, some 3 to 6 miles distant. Except for the western slopes, the ridges have a fairly uniform elevation of between 5,000 and 6,000 feet, and the peaks rise 1,000 to 2,000 feet higher. The Olympic high country shows the effects of glacier scouring everywhere. Numerous lakes lie in basins that were scooped out by the same glaciers that carved circular hollows at the heads of valleys. Slopes sweep upward from the basins with increasing steepness and in many places end in serrated rock ridges and pinnacles. More than a dozen streams flow out of the Olympic Mountains, returning rain and melt water to the ocean. They drop down steeply from the high level basins; after a few swift miles they flatten out and the water takes a slower pace. Glaciers Today A glacier is an accumulation of ice large enough to move of its own weight. Mountain glaciers form at high altitudes where snowfall exceeds melting and the snow builds up annually until, largely due to its weight, the lower layers become solid ice. When the depth of this ice becomes great enough—100 feet or more—it will flow down slope and the ice is transported to lower altitudes where warmer temperatures cause the ice to melt. The glacier terminates where this melting equals the amount of ice moving down from the area of accumulation. [Illustration: LAKE ANGELES LIES IN A CIRQUE ON THE SIDE OF MOUNT ANGELES.] The glaciers in the Olympic Mountains today are small indeed compared to the extensive glaciers that formerly filled the valleys and sculptured the mountains. The shape of the land testifies that a greater number of glaciers once were here. However, more than 60 glaciers, having a collective area of at least 20 square miles, are present today in the Olympic Mountains. Mount Olympus alone has 6 major glaciers, and the total area of permanent snow and ice on it is more than 10 square miles. Several other mountains also have glaciers, notably Mounts Anderson, Christie, Tom, and Carrie. In addition, there are numerous snow patches that remain from one winter to the next but are not thick enough to form glaciers. Viewed from a high position, a panorama of north-facing slopes presents a profusion of snow and ice patches. The presence of so much snow and ice in mountains of modest height does not mean they are enveloped with inhospitable cold. It is due to the abundance of winter snow and considerable cool weather which retards its melting.