A Tale of Vanishing Glaciers

Boulder Glacier – then and now

I’ve been coming to Glacier National Park all my life.

My mother was born in Montana. My grandfather homesteaded a cattle ranch in the northeastern part of the state. Yet his main claim to fame was the fact that he was the state senator who brought the Fort Peck Dam to the region during the height of the depression. Fort Peck was then the largest earth dam in the world, and constructing it put 40 thousand Americans to work. My mom met my Missouri-raised dad when ran out of college money, and came to find work on the dam. (Ironically, the dam’s construction meant no extra work for my grandfather, and, during those sorry years, he could have used the income too.)

Out of love of Montana and the Rockies, around 30 years ago, my mother and dad built a funky summer cabin on the middle fork of the Flathead River, looking straight into Glacier Park. When my parents died, the cabin came to my brother and me. I brought my kid up here before he could walk, and nearly every year since. Now he comes up on his own. It’s where I am as I write this post—the sound of the river rushing softly just beyond the cottonwoods.

I mention all the above just to make clear that I’m not some vacationing Californian waxing sentimental about the scenery. I have blood history with the state.

Anyway. The Glaciers.

On Saturday, I drove the Going-to-the-Sun Highway up to the continental divide at Logan Pass. Other than California’s Route 1, the mama road, Going-to-the-Sun is arguably the most beautiful stretch of highway in the lower 48. But this year, driving it was….extremely upsetting. Natural elements that I’ve come to expect to see for over three decades weren’t there. Haystack creek was gone. The weeping wall was gone. Bridal Veil falls was still there, but far too wispy for comfort.

Most unsettling of all, the glaciers of Glacier Park were visibly vanishing.

I’d noticed that the creeks and waterfalls had drastically diminished over the last five years or so, but this year and last the disappearing nature of the park’s defining elements was particularly startling.
,
At the Logan Pass visitors’ center I asked one of the rangers if she had any information on the glaciers. She did, she said, and handed me a very politely-written pamphlet titled “Climate Change.”

Among the facts I read was this stark one: In 1968 there were 50 glaciers in the park. Now there are 26. There was a lot more about the effect of the melting mountain glaciers on the rest of the ecosystem. But those two numbers said enough.

So what to do? Well, buy a hybrid,, use florescent bulbs in your house….we all know the check list. But mostly, we need to ask every presidential candidate—democratic or republican—what kind of aggressive national and international environmental policy they propose. (If it was left up to me, I’d promise Al Gore whatever it takes to get him in this race.)

And one more thing: if anyone tells you that global warming is B.S. and that human action has nothing to do with climate change, do what Montanans do in this sort of situation: screw gun control. Pull a weapon.

*************************
NOTE: More Voices from the Road late tonight