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OUT OF BOUNDS 65 EXPLORE 66 Outdoors
Interior Secretary Visits Glacier to Mark Park Service Centennial Sally Jewell’s visit highlighted climate change’s impact on park system
LBY JUSTIN FRANZ OF THE BEACON
OGAN PASS – ONE-HUNDRED summers ago, when President Woodrow Wilson signed the
Organic Act creating the National Park Service, Clements Glacier’s icy mass dominated the landscape just west of Logan Pass.
A century later, when Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell came to Glacier National Park to mark the Park Service’s centennial, Clements was nothing more than a shrinking patch of snow and a pile glacial moraine.
“Many of the glaciers in the park never even got a name,” U.S. Geological Survey Climate Change Research Coor- dinator Daniel Fagre told Jewell while hiking above Logan Pass. “By the time they started mapping the park, a lot of the glaciers were gone.”
In 1850, there were more than 150 glaciers in this corner of Montana and many of them were still here when Gla- cier National Park was created in 1910 and when the National Park Service was established six years later. But the gla- ciers began to disappear during the 20th Century. Clements Glacier was gone by the 1950s and today only 25 remain.
Glacier National Park is one of Amer- ica’s glaring examples of climate change. Fagre, who has been studying glacial recession since the 1990s, said the park’s glaciers are like a bank account for the climate. In some years, they’ll stay steady or even grow, but most years they shrink. It is possible that the remaining glaciers in the park will disappear by 2030.
“Glacier National Park is on the lead- ing edge, maybe even the bleeding edge, of climate change,” Superintendent Je Mow told Jewell.
Jewell visited the park on Aug. 25, the 100th anniversary of Wilson signing the Organic Act, as part of a nationwide tour to mark the centennial of the Park Service. The weeklong journey took the secretary from the nation’s rst park, Yellowstone, to its newest, the Katah- din Woods and Waters National Monu- ment, 87,000 acres in the North Woods of Maine that were recently protected by President Barack Obama. Jewell’s visit to Glacier was meant to highlight the impacts of climate change on the park system as well as how managers are responding to increasing visitation and shrinking budgets.
Jewell stayed at the Lake McDon- ald Lodge on the night of Aug. 24 before
USGS research ecologist Dan Fagre, left, shows Department of the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell an image of Clements Glacier, taken in 1914, during a hike to the Hidden Lake overlook as the National Park Service celebrates its centennial in Glacier National Park on Aug. 25. GREG LINDSTROM | FLATHEAD BEACON
taking a Red Bus tour to Logan Pass the following morning. There, she joined sci- entists, park o cials and local media for a hike to Hidden Lake.
“The fact that Glacier National Park may not have glaciers in the future is an incred- ible opportunity to tell the story of climate change,” Jewell said. “It’s a reminder that we must take drastic action.”
During the hike Mow talked about the small steps Glacier is taking to promote sustainability in the park, from promot- ing the use of cardboard water contain- ers to interpretive rangers conveying the story of climate change in their presenta- tions to visitors.
Jewell and Mow also talked about the impacts increased visitation is having on Glacier and the park system as a whole. In 2015, more than 307 million people visited the country’s parks and this year o cials are expecting even higher num- bers. More than 1.5 million people have visited Glacier in the rst seven months of 2016, a 13.8 percent increase over last year.
That increase in visitation has created challenges, especially along the park’s
main thoroughfare, Going-to-the-Sun Road. The parking lot at Logan Pass and other popular spots is frequently full and congestion is common. But Jewell said busy parks are not necessarily a prob- lem; the more people who are inspired by these public lands means the more people advocating for them, she said.
“We told people to nd their park this year and they listened,” she said.
Mow and other Glacier Park o cials have said this fall they will look at this season’s record-breaking visitation and see what lessons can be learned. Last year, after the Sun Road was closed due to a wild re on the east side, the park instituted a queue system for people vis- iting Logan Pass. Mow said having people
wait an extra hour or two to control con- gestion at the pass worked well and that the queue system is something they may revisit in the future.
“So many of our visitors have waited a lifetime to see this place and so if they have to wait a little longer it’s OK with them,” he said.
Jewell praised the work that Fagre, Mow and hundreds of others at Glacier Park were doing to ensure the park’s future.
“These lands belong to all Americans,” she said looking across the landscape a Hidden Lake. “And we must make sure that everyone can enjoy these spaces for generations to come.”
jfranz@ atheadbeacon.com
“THE FACT THAT GLACIER NATIONAL PARK MAY NOT HAVE GLACIERS IN THE FUTURE IS AN INCREDIBLE OPPORTUNITY TO TELL THE STORY OF CLIMATE CHANGE. IT’S A REMINDER THAT WE MUST TAKE DRASTIC ACTION.” - SALLY JEWELL
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AUGUST 31, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM