I have a new piece at The Daily Beast this week on the effects of climate change on the icons of the National Parks Service (“Go Out and Visit a National Park While You Still Can“). It is based on another road trip I took this summer to seven national parks and monuments out in the Northwest and what the current climate science says about their futures. Check it out.
“Not every day-hike has a pay-off like that of the popular Avalanche Trail in Glacier National Park. It begins with a leisurely boardwalk through red cedars and hemlocks, intersects with the rolling waters of Avalanche Creek, and steadily climbs upward until its towering trees part and unveil the amphitheater of Avalanche Lake. The thundering cascade of distant waterfalls are the soundtrack to the lake’s serene turquoise water.
The amphitheater is arresting, though I have to admit that everything in Glacier is jaw-dropping. But as I stand there soaking it in, there is another feeling, a terrible one that I cannot shake—that one day, in the not-so-distant future, this lake and those falls will become shadows of their former selves, and eventually they may even go silent….”