Named for John Tyndall (a 19th-century Irish physicist, natural philosopher, and glaciologist), Tyndall Glacier originates in the basin formed by the southwestern face of Mount Saint Elias (the second-tallest mountain in the United States and the fourth-tallest in North America), as well as Mount Huxley, The Hump, and Haydon Peak in the Saint Elias Mountains.

Tyndall Glacier is sometimes used as a landing area for bush planes by parties seeking to climb Mount Saint Elias, as it was during the first winter ascent of the peak.

[3] Tyndall Glacier first started to advance out of Taan Fjord around AD 1400, and reached its Little Ice Age maximum length at the mouth of Icy Bay at some point prior to 1794, when George Vancouver mapped the ice extending out from Icy Bay.

[4] Since 1991, the glacier's retreat has stabilized, with a terminus at a "shallow bedrock constriction at the head of the fjord," called Hoof Hill.

[7][4] Mountaineer and explorer Bradford Washburn noted in 1992 that the glacier's retreat has meant that the summit of Mount Saint Elias is only twelve miles from tidewater, exacerbating the peak's immense vertical relief.