Nugget Falls, also known as Nugget Creek Falls or Mendenhall Glacier Falls, is a waterfall

Waterfall

A waterfall is a place where flowing water rapidly drops in elevation as it flows over a steep region or a cliff.-Formation:Waterfalls are commonly formed when a river is young. At these times the channel is often narrow and deep. When the river courses over resistant bedrock, erosion happens...

 downstream of the Mendenhall Glacier

Mendenhall Glacier

Mendenhall Glacier is a glacier about long located in Mendenhall Valley, about from downtown Juneau in the southeast area of the U.S. state of Alaska....

, in the U.S. state

U.S. state

A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...

 of Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

. Formed by the receding face of the Mendenhall Glacier, the waterfall drops 377 feet (114.9 m) in two tiers of 99 feet (30.2 m) and 278 feet (84.7 m) onto a sandbar in Mendenhall Lake, which is the freshwater pool at the mouth of the glacier. The waterfall is fed by Nugget Creek, which is in turn fed by the Nugget Glacier, a tributary glacier on the mountainside east of Auke Bay. The creek cascades down towards Mendenhall Lake, forming a hanging valley, then plunges over the falls to the lake. Prior to the recession of Mendenhall Glacier, it was said that the falls would drop "directly on the glacier", or that the "glacier covered the waterfall".