8/7/09, South Cascade Glacier has shrunk by half

From what I can see the S Cascade is not that unusual. I was surprised to see how significantly the Kennedy Glacier has shrunk from a recent view from Pugh. I was guessing about 50% since the mid-80's. And a view of Icy's largest glacier from Shuksan made me draw the same conclusion: About 50% since the mid-70's in this case.

It looks like the North Cascades are going to be a few years behind Glacier National Park in Montana in losing our glaciers. The current estimate for Glacier is that the glaciers will be gone by 2020! - just 10 more years. I didn't see any glaciers that looked to be thicker than about 100' - the Blackfoot, the Sexton and the Pumpelly looking to be the healthiest of those remaining that I was able to view. In visiting the old area of Jackson Glacier, which from photos in the 1930's looked to be perhaps 6 square miles, I would guess the total area of all the numerous remnant glaciers in that basin to be at most 1 square mile, although there are many small to tiny active remnants of the once vast Jackson Glacier. Since the thickest are only about 100' or so (down from at least 300' thick at one time) and given that the Peyto glacier in the similar Canadian Rockies has lost 50 meters of thickness since 1991 (2 year old info) I guess it makes sense that there wouldn't be much left in ten years or so. The famous Sperry Glacier is nearly stagnant except high on Gunsight peak and Grinnell Glacier is not much to get excited about.

By the way I met a fellow who did a ski traverse out of Logan Pass on Going to the Sun Road on July 4th when the highway opened and he said the corn was very good so there may be some good trips in Glacier National Park in early July. Despite the shrinking glaciers, the park gets a lot of snowfall. I understand Logan Pass gets about 600 inches a year, just a little less than Paradise' historical average.

I recently hiked to Spider Gap NE of Lake Wenatchee, and took a peak at the Chiwawa Glacier that flows into Lyman Lakes. I was up there about five years ago to do an ice climb with my dad, and we had continuous ice when we were there in september. This year, in August, it was no even close to continuous, with the glacier being split in high (high, low) and the scoured bedrock was visible for about a 300' swath. It was truly disappointing to know that my dad and I would never be able to return in a fall and finish our first ice climb together. I knew the glaciers were retreating at an alarming rate, but this really hit home. I'll look if I have a picture from then and now.