Chronicling the last years of a dying North Cascades glacier

SKYKOMISH — Nestled in a cirque of mountain peaks in the Monte Cristo range, above the jade green waters of Blanca Lake, lives the Columbia Glacier, several millennia old and now in its waning years.

It has the distinction of being the lowest-elevation glacier of its size in the North Cascades, ascending from 4,700 to 5,600 feet high — fed by low clouds sweeping over the mountains, as well as favorable avalanche conditions. On a dry summer day, Columbia Glacier and other glaciers in the region act as a backup generator for the Skykomish River Basin. They can fuel up to 25% of the basin’s stream flow.

For the masses of hikers who travel 65 miles east of Everett and trudge up seemingly endless switchbacks to the southern edge of Blanca Lake, Columbia Glacier often plays a bit part, photobombing Instagram pictures from far in the background.

Within decades, though, scientists predict Columbia Glacier will be gone.

“This glacier won’t survive this climate, period,” said glaciologist Mauri Pelto, a professor of environmental science at Nichols College in Massachusetts.

Since 1984, Pelto has made the journey to Washington to take detailed measurements of 10 glaciers for the North Cascades Glacier Climate Project. He signed up for the annual tradition, which is supposed to last half a century, when he was a 22-year-old Idaho college student. Since then, he’s already witnessed two glaciers disappear.

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