100 Years on the Timpanogos Glacier    |  | ||
Page Type: Article | Page By: Scott Created/Edited: Apr 5, 2006 / Aug 12, 2008 Object ID: 186144 Hits: 10169 Page Score: 90.99% - 50 Votes Vote: Log in to vote | ||
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Wasatch Range (South) > Mt. Timpanogos (UT) > 100 Years on the Timpanogos Glacier
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| Scott | Re: a side note | |
Hasn't voted | you have climbed so many summits in the Rockies Actually only the sections between West Central Montana and southern Colorado, and no climbs in the Canadian Rockies. I should have said US Rockies, though I was only repeating the statement made by Michael Kelsey, author of the Climbers and Hikers Guide to the World's Mountains. | |
| Posted Jun 2, 2006 3:53 pm | ||
| Scott Wesemann | Impressive! | |
Hasn't voted | Very impressive article. I have been watching the Glacier for years now and I was really sad to see it completely dry in 2003. I really liked the old pictures and can only imagine what it would have been like to climb it in the early 1900's. | |
| Posted Jul 3, 2006 4:23 pm | ||
| BobSmith | Amazing. | |
Voted 10/10 | What a great summitpost. Very simply told in merely the photographs that greenhouse gases are changing our planet. | |
| Posted Nov 11, 2006 1:27 pm | ||
| Bob Sihler | Amazing, yet sad | |
Voted 10/10 | I've seen similar evidence in Glacier National Park and the Canadian Rockies. The naysayers just piss me off when the evidence is so glaringly obvious. It's reasonable to debate what, if anything, to do, but denying it is just ignorant or dishonest. I was on the "glacier" in 2002-- what a difference compared to that 2003 photo! | |
| Posted Dec 29, 2006 12:09 am | ||
| ktnbs | just re-read | |
Hasn't voted | still very fascinating. | |
| Posted Dec 29, 2006 6:16 am | ||
| hyperphil | I was crevasse witness | |
Hasn't voted | I was on TERT in 1993 when the crevasse opened up. John Moellmer found it, and Paul Hart and I went up to check it out. It was eery--deep blue ice, 40 feet thick at least. The hole was DEEP. If you fell in, you'd be 30th century archaeological curiousity. I have a photo of it somewhere in my infernally huge collection of slides. Glen Meyer, the TERT director, got a glaciology team from Wash State to assay the ice. Their results were inconclusive as to whether it was truly glacial. The fact that the crevasse did not reappear in 2004 suggests it was moving, that is, glacial. Glacial or not, I NEVER walk down the middle of the snowfield any more. | |
| Posted Feb 13, 2007 8:28 pm | ||
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| Scott | Thanks! | |
Hasn't voted | I have added your comments to the article. If you ever find the photos feel free to post them to this article! | |
| Posted Feb 13, 2007 9:44 pm | ||
| Collin2 | My Dad's Resopnse | |
Hasn't voted | I sent my Dad this post and his reply may be interesting to some of you. Collin, Very interesting series of dramatic photos of the Timp Glacier. When I was young it was thought to be a snowfield rather than a glacier, though most still called it a glacier. I used to slide down it on my buttocks and it hurt, but I didn't haul skis up to the top of Timp. In the 1960s, when I climbed to the top of Timp at least 3 or 4 times, there were big boulders protruding up through the glacier and the snow melted around these rocks so that there was a hole between the glacier and the rocks that might be six or seven feet. We avoided as best we could any collision with the rocks on our way sliding down. At least that's what I recall then. Excuse me for being lengthy. I know you just sent me photos to look at, but I still wanted to say a few things in regard to global warming theories. To me, son, I don't have a big argument as to whether the planet's overall climate may have warmed up a tad or not, but rather, my big argument with the doomsayers of global warming stems from the claims by some that our global climate is shifting dramatically into a warming trend that is mostly caused by MANKIND. I believe that's ridiculous. Over 70% of earth is unpopulated ocean surface effected mostly by the SUN. The polar caps have few men on them. The vast northern areas across Russia and Canada remain mostly unpopulated. Nature, especially the SUN, is the bigger factor in any climate change by far. Humor me with a bit of remanicing. When I first got married, in 1971, the news media was terrifying everyone for a season with claims that scientists believed we were moving into a new ICE AGE. NEWSWEEK and NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC made these coming ICE AGE claims. Then, when the ice-sheets and ice age didn't materialize by the 1980s, we suddenly were being hit with frightening claims that an OZONE HOLE was evidence that mankind was destroying our atmosphere by using aresoal deoderants and air conditioning, despite the fact that the OZONE HOLE was over the antarctic continent where no air conditioners were used and few humans were using deoderant spray cans that would supposedly harm the ozone layer of our atmosphere. We were told this terrible activity of mankind was causing global warming and that government, especially global government, must step in and save humanity from doom. My point is that, within the normal warming and cooling of global climate displayed across human history, we are not in an unuasually warm climactic change that warrents the fear mongering the media and government have carried out. There was a much warmer climactic time period during the middle ages and mankind actually benefited from that warm era as plants grew better and there was agricultural plenty for all, then a "small ice age" came and went and we are apparently on the warming end of that small ice age. Its natural, not man made. There's a sensationalism rampant in today's media, including the movies, that shows the earth destroyed by weather-catastrophes such as rising oceans that swallow New York City as the polar ice caps quickly melt due to man-made global warming. Sadly, if too many people believe the sensationalistic Hollywood- and-Al Gore-prophecies of doom they will destroy their own economies by enacting such treaties as the Kyoto Treaty that would deeply cut energy production and consumption and thus destroy ecomomic growth and even reduce economies impoverishing us all. After all, most green house gases are not even manmade. Such a government-demanded cut in energy production and consumption is a more real danger to humanity than the global warming scares the UN puts forth with the help of the Establishment-controlled media. Collin, while the Timp glacier may be retreating or even completely melting some glaciers are actually advancing at this time. If glaciers retreating are proof of global warming, then glaciers advancing are proof of global cooling. They can not both be true at the same time. Unfortunately I don't have time to find the names of the advancing glaciers for your investigation, son, but you might be able to search some out. But, here's a quote from a recent book on the topic of global warming: "Advancing glaciers can be found within miles of their melting brethren yet the former watch in loneliness as overheated journalists flock to the more cooperative ice. Similarly, the vaunted disappearing ice caps generally aren't disappearing. Much melting activity began at the end of the Little Ice Age and continues, often found in areas that are actually experiencing decades long cooling." (page 76-77, "The Poliltically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism," by Christorpher C. Horner) The snow cap on Mount Kilimanjaro is receding -- despite decades of cooling in Kenya-- due to regional land use and atmospheric moisture changes. Anyway, thanks for the pictures. It is amazing that so much has changed with the TIMP Glacier. Dad | |
| Posted Jul 6, 2007 11:54 pm | ||
| younkin | It is not a Glacier, it's a snow field.... | |
Hasn't voted | I am sorry guys and gals but Timp has a snowfield not a glacier, if you want to see glaciers go to Washington sometime, Jim Younkin | |
| Posted Mar 16, 2008 2:27 am | ||
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| Scott | Re: Propaganda | |
Hasn't voted | Next time you should actually bother reading the article. There is no propaganda or anything remotely political mentioned in the article. This article is to point out that in the early 1900's, this was a small crevassed glacier or glacierette and that even today it appears that there may be a glacier under the talus, which would make it a unique feature in Utah (the only one of its kind). It is for historical purposes nothing more and no one could argue that the glacier/snowfield is the same as it was in the early 1900's (there hasn't been a visible resemblance to a glacier since before the 1930's-which is obviously before any GW debate). Next time, please read the article before posting trollish comments. I hiked Timp July 24th of 2006 and it looks just like your picture from 1949. If you actually read the article it states that the drought of the 1930's melted much of the old surface snow and ice and that several years in the 1940's were very wet. 1949 was a wet year. See here: "The Dust Bowl Drought of the 1930’s took a heavy toll on the Timpanogos Glacier, and much of the surface ice melted. The worst year of all was 1934, and the glacier shrunk drastically in just that one year. In most years, not many crevasses opened up after the 1930’s, and they were all small. The glacier took on the appearance of a perpetual snowfield, more than a true glacier. The 1940’s provided a welcome relief from the drought and average or above average precipitation returned for several years. During the 1940’s several mid summer ski races were held, usually in late July." It would be nice if I had photos from drought years of the 1930's, but I do not. The original idea was to include photos of every decade, but I need to find more. The glacier (or snow field) has melted a few times in the past and come back. The first time (in recorded history at least) all the surface snow and ice melted was in 1994 and a few times since then (such as 2003). I hear that this year there is lots of snow up there. 2006 was a heavy snow year as well. Obviously there is going to be a lot of snow on the mountain above the lake in heavy snow years. If you actually read the article, the early to mid 1980's also had many high snow years where there was as much surface snow as in the 1940's. Anyway, the sole good point you may bring out is the article can be updated with some more recent photos. I'll add some more update for historical puroposes only. It is you and others who have turned this nice article into propaganda and political. This article is not a debate on GW. | |
| Posted Aug 12, 2008 5:04 pm | ||
| TyeDyeTwins | Nice Article | |
Voted 10/10 | Very well done, nice to a see a local article on SP! Just hearing about the glacier completely melt out brings a tear to an indians eye. This precious beauty will one day (in my life time) become a distant memory. Too bad this type of story keeps occuring all over the world. Thanks for nothing GLOBAL COOKING! | |
| Posted Apr 19, 2009 2:58 pm | ||
| asaking11 | Awesome Article | |
Voted 10/10 | Nice write up Scott. My grandfather has a few pictures of when he climbed it in the 30's or 40's. I should see if I can find them. | |
| Posted Jun 18, 2009 3:15 am | ||
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| Scott | Re: Awesome Article | |
Hasn't voted | That would be awesome if you could add them. | |
| Posted Jun 18, 2009 11:54 pm | ||
| phatty | Good Work | |
Hasn't voted | Great article! I will be making my 4th summit of Timp in September. Will document some photos and post them for ya! | |
| Posted Aug 27, 2009 11:48 am | ||
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