Mountain Climbers Bring Back Firsthand Accounts of Vanishing Glaciers Due to Global Warming

[Omaha Steve]

http://omaha.cox.net/cci/newsnational/national?_mode=view&_state=maximized&view=article&id=D8OC1QGG0&_action=validatearticle

Mountain Climbers Bring Back Firsthand Accounts of Vanishing Glaciers Due to Global Warming

04-07-2007 5:36 PM
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer

BEND, Ore. (Associated Press) -- Mountaineers are bringing back firsthand accounts of vanishing glaciers, melting ice routes, crumbling rock formations and flood-prone lakes where glaciers once rose.

The observations are transforming a growing number of alpine and ice climbers, some of whom have scientific training, into eyewitnesses of global warming. Increasingly, they are deciding not to leave it to scientists to tell the entire story.

"I personally have done a bunch of ice climbs around the world that no longer exist," said Yvon Chouinard, a renowned climber and surfer and founder of Patagonia, Inc., an outdoor clothing and gear company that champions the environment. "I mean, I was aghast at the change."


Shawn O'Fallon of Anchorage, Alaska, climbs the North Ridge of K2 in the Xinjiang Province of China during the summer of 2000. Mountaineers are bringing back firsthand accounts of vanishing glaciers, melting ice routes, crumbling rock formations and flood-prone lakes where glaciers once rose. The observations are transforming a growing number of alpine and ice climbers, some of whom have scientific training, into eyewitnesses of global warming. (AP Photo/John Heilprin)


Chouinard pointed to recent trips where the ice had all but disappeared on the famous Diamond Couloir of 16,897-foot Mount Kenya, and snow was absent at low elevations on 4,409-foot Ben Nevis, Britain's highest peak, in the Highlands of northwest Scotland. He sees a role for climbers in debating climate change, even if their chronicles are unscientific.

"Most people don't care whether the ice goes or not, the kind of ice that we climb on and stuff," he said. But climbers' stories, he added, can "make it personal, instead of just scientists talking about it. Telling personal stories might hit home to some people."

Alpine climbers are worrying about the loss of classic routes and potential new lines up mountains that are melting, from the Cascades in the Pacific Northwest and the Alps in Europe to the Andes in South America and the Himalaya in Asia.

FULL story at link.

[snappyturtle]

1. Thanks for your thread........I think you're correct:

If more people who know the lay of the land talk about the loss of glaciers in their personal experiences it may help deniers of climate change come around. I was in Zermatt in '74 and there were glacial ice masses all over.....in the afternoons after skiing and being warned of crevasses we would hike the mountainsides and alps.....there was a lot of run off THEN (summer)that supplied rushing streams down the mountains. Oh, how I wish I could see it again....then again, maybe I don't! K&R

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Did you ever see the Gorner glacier, on the way to the Monte Rosa hut?

It's the most obvious sign of warming I've seen.



I first saw it in about 1992, in summer; when I saw it again at the same time of year in 2000, the level of the glacier was about 30 feet lower (you could tell, because they'd fixed some ropes on a steep path going down to it, and by 2000 there was a huge gap). And what in 1992 had been a 'dry' walk across ice all the way, had, in 2000, a 25ft wide fast-flowing river in the middle of it, that they'd had to build a simple wooden bridge across.

[snappyturtle]

4. OMG! Brings back good memories just to see places

like this again....so sad. I'm certain I'd see a huge difference in Zermatt. We used to take lifts (3) up the way to the then new Italian/Swiss ski building...it was just being built at the time. On the gandolas we could see all the glaciers and then ski down over them. I think that would be a scary proposition today....even then we sometimes skiied over (parallel) 2x4's across new crevasses!The guide would yodel and we just flew down...hate to see those place melt away. :(

[eppur_se_muova]

2. In Lockwood's "Locust", he describes how glaciers in the Rockies are vanishing ...

so fast that all the debris -- insect carcasses are what interests him -- that have been trapped in those glaciers for thousands of years are being washed away in meltwater faster than samples can be analyzed.

"Locust" is a ripping good read, by the way. Recommended to anyone who is interested in population biology or extinction events, or even frontier history.