National Parks Traveler Podcast · Kurt Repanshek

National Parks Traveler Podcast | Shrinking Mount Rainier

·56 min·3 clips

Rainier’s summit ice cap was about 35 feet thick in 1950 and about 15 feet thick now.

National Parks Traveler opens on Mount Rainier and asks whether the summit has changed. From Tacoma or Seattle, the mountain still looks snowy and steady. Kurt Repencheck frames the question around climate warming and a summit that may no longer be 14,410 feet high. He speaks with Eric Gilbertson, a mechanical engineer and mountaineer from Seattle University, and Scott Hodling, a waterman and mountaineer from Seattle University. The conversation stays focused on the ice cap at the highest point of the mountain in late summer. The guests explain that they were not studying the lower glaciers. They were comparing the summit ice cap with the highest rock they could identify. That rock acts as a control because it should not rise and fall with the ice. To make the measurement more reliable, they also checked USGS monuments around the mountain. Those monuments have been measured since 1956. If they still match, the change is coming from melting rather than from the mountain itself shifting underfoot. The episode briefly widens into Rainier's deeper geologic history. Mount Rainier is a dormant volcano. Its summit is also large and uneven enough that people can walk around different high points on it. One guest believes the mountain used to be around 17,000 feet tall before its last eruption. The discussion places that scale of eruption alongside the 1980 change at Mount St. Helens. Even so, the guests do not think Rainier is changing dramatically on an annual time scale through geology. The speaker who explains the rock checks argues that any serious bulging would likely trigger wider concern and possibly evacuations. Kurt follows that thought toward Yellowstone, where ground movement has also raised concern. The result is a careful, location-specific look at how to tell climate-driven loss apart from volcanic change.

As heard by us

A measured look at whether Rainier's summit has actually changed.

The episode takes up a simple but sturdy question: whether Mount Rainier's snowy summit still looks the same, or whether the top has actually changed.

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Why you'd press play

Listen if you want the science behind Mount Rainier's shrinking summit, explained plainly.

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