Glacierless Peak? The icy realms of Washington’s North Cascades lose their cool

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1. I got a chance to tour the Athabasca glacier this summer at Jasper National Park in Alberta and it’s a very similar story there. My thought upon leaving was, anyone that wants to enjoy these landmarks should visit soon because the coming decades will not be kind to these incredible landscapes. It’s a very sad state of affairs…

2. Over the last 25 years I’ve seen glaciers fade from several Eastern Washington peaks. Each year they got dustier and darker, absorbing more sunlight and retreating further up the mountains. After a wildfire placed a thick layer of black soot on them they nearly evaporated. Soon they won’t be there at all, and that’s concerning because without the glaciers we won’t have glacial rivers and streams that feed the larger rivers. We won’t have the salmon spawning grounds, or enough water to sustain the animals and plant life around them.

   I’ve seen that the springs that are fed by snow melt high in the mountain have dried up and the water that I’ve crossed year after year is no longer present. This means that animals have to travel further to find fresh water, which puts more stress on them.

   The sad part is that there’s not much that a single individual could do. I bought an EV and do my best to avoid driving my ICE vehicle, but we need more change. We need an industrial revolution of decarbonization, but I doubt it’ll be my lifetime when that happens, and I worry for my kid’s future too.

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