August 30, 2025
I have had the good fortune to see a few glaciers. And to stand on one or two.
The first glacier I ever saw was in the high country of Yosemite. I was probably 14 years old. I remember it distinctly because a co-ed group of college kids were sliding down a snowfield beneath the McClure Glacier, naked, on pieces of cardboard, off a cliff, maybe 10 feet tall, into a lake the water in which can’t have been more than a few degrees north of freezing.
It made an impression. The glacier, I mean.
Fast forward 32 years to when my friend Ian Ross and I climbed Mt. Shasta. We were 46 years old. That’s us and the path we took to the top in June of 2002.
And this is the view of Whitney Glacier…or at least what little remained of it… from the summit.
Two months later I took this photo of my kids Kate and Sam in Glacier National Park in Montana.
If you look right between them, you will see…wait for it…Jackson Glacier. Yes, that’s right. Jackson Glacier.
When Glacier National Park was established in 1910, there were over 100 glaciers. Now there are 26 and those are expected to disappear before this century is out. Jackson Glacier will be gone in five years.
Fast forward five years to 2007 when Ian and I tried, but failed to summit Mt. Ritter, a 13,000’ peak in the Sierras. That seems a long time ago now, as today my Parky’s would never permit me to attempt this “crossing.”
Ian and I tried what is called the Southeast Glacier approach to Ritter, but never really got close to the summit before having to turn back. It seemed the glacier was receding faster than we were ascending.
No metaphor there.
Our plan was to climb the scree field left by the retreating glacier. Here’s I am knee deep in scree. I’m the 51-year-old bozo launching f-bombs down at Lake Ediza.
What does this have to do with a cruise to Alaska? I’m getting there, I admit, at a glacial pace, but bear with me.
My mother always taught me not to say, “I hate.” She said it was impolite. Instead, we Jackson children were taught to say, “I don’t care for…”
Sorry mom, but there’s always an exception.
I HATE scree.
In every sense possible. Geological. Metaphorical. Philosophical. Call me lazy, but seems to me that with every hard fought step, whether on a mountain or in life in general, it shouldn’t be too much to ask that one achieve some modest measure of progress. You know…forward? Up? I’m probably missing some metaphysical lesson here, but I fail to see the virtue in a world where, for each step forward and up, one slides a half step back and down. Better to stick to a snow field than the granite detritus left by a dying glacier.
Sorry. Where was I? Oh yeah…
The last time I stood on a glacier was nine years ago, in La Valle Blanche in the Alpes above Chamonix on the French/Italian border. This is the “white valley.”
My guide on that walk, a French fella named Fred, took me to a point looking down into Italy where the Geánt Glacier was fighting a losing battle against global warming.
Fred and I agreed that our grandchildren will likely never see a glacier. Not in the Alpes. Not in Glacier National Park.
But Alaska?
Fast forward to now. Two weeks ago, Cathy asked if I had seen the news.
Glacier lake outburst at Alaska’s Mendenhall Glacier causes record-breaking flooding
Twelve miles north of Juneau, the Mendenhall River flows from Mendenhall Lake which lies at the base of Mendenhall Glacier or as the Native Alaskans refer to it, Aak’w T’aak Sit’. Above Mendenhall Glacier is Suicide Glacier which, as it retreats, leaves a bowl into which meltwater gathers. This bowl is known as Suicide Basin or what the Alaskans call “K’oox Kaadi” or Marten’s Side Basin. The flood was caused when the glacial debris which formed a dam at the bottom of the basin gave way sending a torrent of water and debris down toward Juneau.
Kinda like an avalanche of water.
Let’s face it: Mother Nature is pissed.
Our high mountains are warming more quickly than the Earth as a whole. The Juneau Ice Fields are melting twice as quickly as before 2010. Since 1990 glacial lakes worldwide have grown by 50% in number, area and volume. This leads to GLOFs, otherwise known as “glacial lake outburst floods” and GLOFs lead to this…
Cathy and I…god willing and the creek don’t rise…hope to see the Mendenhall Glacier above Juneau, the Margerie, John Hopkins and Lamplugh Glaciers that feed into Glacier Bay, and the Dawes Glacier that feeds into Endicott Arm. We are very fortunate to have the chance.
But I can’t help but feel the same way I used to feel visiting the Fleishacker Zoo in San Francisco and watching Uulu, the last polar bear. Thrilled of course, but more than a little embarrassed, chagrined and saddened.
If we are honest with ourselves, we boomers, we blue hairs who will, I’m sure, crowd the deck to catch a glimpse of these dying rivers of ice, have not acquitted ourselves well in our stewardship of this planet, our home. We have spent our lifetimes bickering over petty differences on petty issues following small, petty men. Time and time again, we have taken one small step forward, only to slide back two, knowing what is required of us, but seemingly constitutionally incapable of making even a small collective sacrifice of convenience for the good of our children and grandchildren .
Maybe, just maybe, if more of us see what is right in front of us we might still summon the courage to do the right thing.
"Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost" 