One approach to mitigating biodiversity loss associated with climate change is identifying and protecting local habitats that can act as refugia for vulnerable taxa. Alpine streams are habitat to many climate-vulnerable cold stenotherms and are highly heterogeneous from one to the next, driven largely by variability in hydrological source. In the Rocky Mountains (USA), major alpine streamflow sources include snowmelt, surface-glacier runoff, and runoff from ice locked in cold rocky landforms (CRLs) such as rock glaciers. CRL ice is relatively buffered from synoptic-scale climate, hence streams sourced by CRL ice (“icy seeps”) have potential as climate refugia for cold-adapted taxa. However, substantial variability also exists among icy seeps. Our objective was to quantify abiotic and biotic variability among alpine streams representing a range of habitat characteristics, with an emphasis on icy seeps. During a 2-week mid-summer period in two consecutive years, we sampled 7 icy seeps, plus 5 snowmelt-fed and 4 glacier-fed streams in the Teton Range, Wyoming. We asked if abiotic habitat variables hypothesized to occur along a harsh-mild gradient could predict aspects of benthic macroinvertebrate community structure. Habitat characteristics included streambed stability, suspended solids, water temperature, conductivity, flow intermittency, elevation, aspect, and slope. An abiotic glaciality index clearly differentiated icy seeps from the other stream types. Macroinvertebrate communities varied somewhat among stream types, but there was also substantial variability among communities within stream type, particularly for icy seeps. Of 43 total taxa, few were indicative of a single stream type. For example, a threatened stonefly (Lednia tetonica) occurred in both glacier-fed streams and icy seeps. A multivariate habitat “mildness” metric was strongly correlated with community structure. Icy seeps with greater mildness had greater taxa richness, including cold stenotherms. Variables increasing habitat mildness included higher streambed stability, lower diel temperature range, lower suspended solids, and combinations of elevation, slope, aspect that decrease duration of snow cover. These results suggest that abiotic variability among icy seeps might predict the potential of individual streams to act as climate refugia for vulnerable taxa. Identifying readily measurable habitat variables indicative of greatest refugial potential will be an important next step for conservation.