The melting of the global cryosphere has been widely observed through remote sensing. In the past decade, with the rising global temperatures, the primary cause of ice sheet and glaciers loss has changed from ice calving to surface melting. Mountain glaciers, although representing <1% of the global glacier ice volume, play a vital role in regional climate. This study looks at surface melting on the western and the central Chugach Mountains in Alaska from 1989 to present. A calculation of normalized difference ice index shows that compared to the 1989 values, the mean ice index value of 2015 has decreased by 20 percent, indicating a drastic surface melt event independent of local weather. However, the study also questions the difference between the Landsat 5 and Landsat 8 sensors, as thermal data, on the other hand, show no melting event in 2015.