Environment
Montana's Glacier National Park Is Rapidly Melting Away
The park could be almost glacier-free by 2030.
Montana’s Glacier National Park might soon need a new name, as its titular rivers of ice are melting away like white chocolate in a smelting furnace.
Back in the mid-1800s, the Rocky Mountains enclave—which last year enjoyed more than 2 million visits—sheltered some 150 glaciers. That number had plummeted to 83 by the 1960s, and today has hit a dismal low of 25. Blame the increasingly balmy climate for the park’s balding peaks, which could be nearly glacier-free as soon as 2030.