Glacier's Shrinking Glaciers

I've written a new piece for the Frommers.com park newsletter that you may be interested in. This one, "Tipping the Balance: How Glacier National Park is Melting Away", as you might guess from the title, looks at the effects of the melting glaciers in Glacier National Park. As I was writing the piece, the question that kept flying through my mind was, so what? So what that the glaciers are melting, it's just ice after all. So there is less ice in the mountain tops, what's the big deal? It turns out that it is a big deal, and that is what I tried to suggest in the article. I wrapped the article with some quotes from Aldo Leopold, a conservation leader whose messages about the land ethic, and conservation are as strong today as when he had been writing them over 60 years ago.

If you are not familiar with Aldo Leopold, have a look at some snippets of his writings on the web. If you've got more time, do yourself a favor this summer and read his book 'A Sand County Almanac'. Quite inspiring.

By the way, I didn't include it in the Frommer's article, but if you get a chance, check out this series of USGS photos of the shrinking Grinnell Glacier within the park - http://nrmsc.usgs.gov/repeatphoto/gg_mt-gould.htm.