Death Valley Closed

[xkaes]

A lot of sadness to it too. I've gotta go out back this afternoon and process a big Fuji Supergloss print I enlarged yesterday of a stunning glacial melt pond I visited a few times in earlier decades. Not even a trace of a glacier there now. Out of the sixty or so glaciers in the High Sierra around that time, I'd be surprised if even a dozen are left today, and they're getting smaller and smaller.

Likewise, there aren't any glaciers left in Glacier National Park, but the people in Montana don't depend on them for water -- like people in Quito (on the Equator!!!) and many other places do.

[h2oman]

As you mentioned, the problem is not just in Death Valley. It's in CA & NV, as well. But don't forget Arizona -- OMG!!! And Utah & Wyoming. There was also lots of flash flooding here in Colorado yesterday -- just not enough to make the National NEWS. Lots of roads closed from mud flows carrying tons of debris down from the burn scars from last year's forest fires.

And there is a strong tropical depression that is flooding south west Texas right now that is about to add to the monsoon flow flooding the West.

Death Valley "ain't seen nothin' yet".

I guess I should appreciate our dreary, cloudless and somewhat hot (but thankfully fairly smoke-free!) days...

[Old_Dick]

https://www.science.org/content/arti...d-happen-again

[Drew Wiley]

The last of the serious glaciers in the US Rockies are at the north end of the Wind River Range in Wyoming. Those are crucial to the farm and range lands below. I was last in that area just before the pandemic. Any glaciers shown on topo maps at the southern end of the range are long gone. And like a here, a lot of brown beetle-killed pines, though nowhere near as big solid masses of them. Almost everywhere you gotta get up higher into the hemlocks and timberline pine species like foxtails to get away from beetle damage. In the Sierras, any forest below 8,000 ft is pretty much doomed.

[Drew Wiley]

Old Dick - yeah, we had to study Forams (short for Foraminifera), Diatoms, Fusilinids. Micropaleontology could be awfully hard on the eyes.

[xkaes]

The last of the serious glaciers in the US Rockies are at the north end of the Wind River Range in Wyoming.

The Dinwoody Glaciers. I hauled my 4x5 in there -- on both sides of the Wind River range -- not enough times.

[Drew Wiley]

I was on the west side last time, headed on a big long clockwise loop out of the Green River trailhead. Lots of solitude. If I had been headed up on the glacier I would have brought an ice axe and my serious Bibler tent instead of a lightwt Big Agnes one. I once camped in a horrific wind tunnel up there, way above timberline, along with a pretty severe overnight storm. In the Bibler I was as cozy and dry as a bug in a rug. Anything less would have been shredded to bits - and I did have that happen a couple times, and learned that lesson the hard way. Gas prices are too steep for me this year to drive that far; and frankly, I'm not in as good shape as I was back when I was 70, before the pandemic lockdown. Every time I plan a decent high altitude tuneup trip these days, some giant fire seems to start up and spoil the opportunity. We'll see; but at least I got to do strenuous off-trail backpacking a full decade longer than I thought I ever would.

[Sal Santamaura]

...Attachment 230107...

One of several publications that ran the story then:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/19...lobal-warming/

[Michael R]

Canada will be fought over someday. It is currently mostly empty and will be a place of refuge when most of the world goes soylent green.

[xkaes]

I predict Canada will be fought over someday. It is currently mostly empty and will be a place of refuge.

It won't be empty for long.

Better to buy real estate in Antarctica. Unlike the North Pole, it actually has land, and it was once very tropical. In fact, you can even drill for oil there, and "blow" what little is left of our big blue marble.