ABSTRACT
It feels as if a giant meat locker has swung open, sending a cold, yet thin, wind blowing down South Cascade Glacier just outside North Cascades National Park in northern Washington. The sun glares. Everything is white. The expanse of snow acts like a big reflecting basin. Bob Krimmel, a scientist in a broad-brimmed hat and gloves, is initially winded by the altitude change, but spends much of the day trudging through brush to get to this spot-the longest-studied glacier in the northern Cascade mountains, the nation’s most heavily glaciated area outside of Alaska. So much snow. And yet, the glacier is shrinking.
