Grinnell Glacier in Repeat Photos, 1887 to 2023: A Century of Melting

In 1926, after his last climb to the glacier that bears his name, George Bird Grinnell wrote in his diary: "The glacier is melting very fast." He added: "All these glaciers are melting rapidly and after a time will disappear." A century of photographs taken from the same spots shows how right he was — and how the reasons have changed.

Grinnell Glacier in 1887, photographed by Lt. John H. Beacom.

The same view around 1920, by T. J. Hileman. Credit: Glacier National Park Archives.

The first pair

Grinnell reached the Many Glacier Valley in 1886, and in 1887 he climbed toward the ice with a camera. His own pictures did not turn out well, but his companion, Lieutenant John H. Beacom, was a better photographer. There were no official trails or printed maps then, and no Glacier National Park — it would not be established until 1910. The two men bushwhacked and rock-climbed to the ice. The experience inspired Grinnell to keep visiting for the rest of his life, and helped lead him to lobby for a national park to protect the landscape. In the 1890s he estimated that "the thickness of this mass of ice can scarcely be less than 100 feet and may be much more."

By around 1920, a footbridge crossed the creek and trails led hikers up with relative ease — and T. J. Hileman photographed the glacier again. The two images are likely the first pair of repeat photographs ever taken in Glacier National Park, and they show the glacier shrinking and thinning over some 33 years.

A natural retreat, then a human one

Glaciers react slowly, like an ice cube left on the counter. Grinnell was watching the end of the Little Ice Age, a cold period when the park's current glaciers were at their largest; it ended in the late 1800s, and the melting he saw was a mostly natural response. He did not know why the ice was retreating.

A century on, two dozen of the park's glaciers still survive, changed. From the vantage of Hileman's 1920 photo, Grinnell Glacier can no longer be seen at all (2021). And the change in more recent pairs — a 1941 view from high above against the same view in 2019, for instance — can largely be pinned on human-caused warming.

Grinnell Glacier in the summer of 1941. Credit: NPS.

The same view on September 2, 2019. Credit: U.S. Geological Survey.

Still retreating

Repeating the 2019 view in 2023 shows the retreat has not stopped. Wider views from Grinnell Ridge, from September 2016 and September 2023, show that the glacier has lost not just area but thickness. Glaciers change in three dimensions, and repeat photographs that show all three are the most useful.

Grinnell Glacier from the summit of Mount Gould in 1938, 1998, 2019 and 2021. Credit: USGS and NPS.

Photos alone tell only part of the story; scientists use many kinds of data to understand the glaciers' melting now and in the future. But repeat photographs remain an excellent, vivid record of change — just as they were for Grinnell.

Sources

Based on "Repeat Photos of Grinnell Glacier," from the National Park Service's series Photographing Change in Glacier National Park, a work of the United States government in the public domain. Grinnell's words are from his writings as quoted in John Taliaferro's Grinnell: America's Environmental Pioneer and His Restless Drive to Save the West (2019).