By about 12,000 years ago the thick Pinedale ice sheet had melted entirely from the Yellowstone Lake basin and most other areas of the Park, although valley glaciers continued to exist in the mountains until about 8,500 years ago. Then, following a short period of total disappearance, small icefields formed again in the heads of some of the higher mountain valleys. Since the melting of the Pinedale ice, however, none has descended as a glacier into the lower stretches of the valleys. Even though a few snowfields persist locally throughout the summers (except during the warmest years), no glaciers exist in the Park at the present time. [Illustration: EXTENT OF ICE in Yellowstone National Park during the maximum spreading of the Pinedale glaciers, probably about 15,000 years ago. Long arrows indicate direction of strong flowage of ice; short arrows show direction of less vigorous ice flowage. The dark-blue area shows the main ice mass centered over the Yellowstone Lake basin in the southeast corner of the Park. Many of the high peaks and ridges such as Mount Washburn, which are here shown free of ice, were glaciated at least once during the past 250,000 years. Whether they were covered by the Pinedale glaciers, however, is still an unresolved question. (Based on information supplied by G. M. Richmond, K. L. Pierce, and H. A. Waldrop.) (Fig. 38)] [Illustration: FLAT-LYING BEDS of fine sand, silt, and clay near the mouth of Trout Creek in Hayden Valley. These beds were deposited in a glacially dammed lake that covered part of Hayden Valley when the Pinedale glaciers were melting. The height of the streambank is about 40 feet. (Fig. 39)] [Illustration: Douglas-fir branch and cones.] [Illustration: WATERFALLS in Yellowstone National Park. (Fig. 40) A, Lewis Falls on the Lewis River. The falls cascade over the steep edge of a rhyolite lava flow.] [Illustration: B, Upper Falls on the Yellowstone River. The brink of the falls marks the contact between dense, resistant rhyolite lava (which forms the massive cliff) and more easily eroded rhyolite lava containing a high proportion of volcanic glass immediately downstream, as shown in figure 42.] [Illustration: C, Gibbon Falls on the Gibbon River. The river tumbles over a scarp etched in the Yellowstone Tuff. The scarp first formed along faults at the north edge of the Yellowstone caldera 600,000 years ago, at a point that now lies ¼ to ½ mile downstream. Continued erosion has caused the falls to recede northward to their present position.]