Glacier National Park
Get there as soon as you can. By our observations during our visit, and from what we heard from the rangers, Glacier National Park could be a misnomer by as soon as 2030. With over 150 glaciers in the park when it was founded in 1910, there are now only 25 glaciers over 25 acres in size. The USGS has an excellent, if not haunting photodocumentation of the glaciers’ retreat since 1910.
Global warming, caused by many factors, has unequivocally lead to these glaciers retreating. It’s as if someone opened the door of the planet and is defrosting the freezer. Hundreds of feet of ice thickness has dwindled to nothing at many of the glaciers. In all honesty, it was even hard for this geologist to figure out what was glacier and what was just a snowfield; it’s that bad. Where glaciers once were, there is now only barren rock, or perhaps a glacial lake that hadn’t been liquid in ten of thousands of years. It’s not just happening here, but all over the world. It’s just here, where the glaciers were relatively small to start, that the result of climate change is that much more evident.
Don’t get us wrong, there are still small glaciers, but they’re sad to see. That being said, a visit to the park is amazing and the hiking and views are truly sublime. Wildflowers are everywhere and seeing the mountain goats and bighorn sheep are a treat to watch. Just get there soon.
