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Melting Sierra Nevada Glaciers on NPR

NPR ran a story on Sierra Nevada Glaciers last Monday as part of their Climate Watch series. Two NPR reporters, Sasha Khokha and Gretchen Weber, accompanied me up to Dana Glacier last September to shoot repeat photographs of IC Russell's 1883 photographs. Located just outside the border of Yosemite National Park, Dana Glacier is one of the most accessible glaciers in the Sierra Nevada. The hike can be made in a day, but it is through tough terrain at higher elevations. We were able to discuss glaciers and climate as we journeyed up to the glacier, while also recording background sound along the way. There was a fair breeze blowing so a large haired microphone nicknamed DLR (David Lee Roth) and an umbrella were deployed to reduce the blustery wind sound. When we reached the location of Russell's photograph I could see that the glacier had become smaller since 2004. It was not a surprise, as Rhonda and I had just visited Darwin Glacier, which had also shrunk since 2004. We continued to the base of the glacier where we could see the glacier was still moving, evident from crevasses. However, the glacier was clearly smaller, had lost volume, and a new small moraine had begun to form at the base of the glacier. The day had grown long and we journey back down the valley. I managed to get us caught up in some brush on the return trip, not very welcome after a long day out. We returned the car, happy to be back down and ready to treat ourselves to some dinner. It is sometimes tough to watch the glaciers continue to shrink, but I'm happy that the word is getting out and that people care enough to listen.

Check out the radio broadcast and multimedia reports. The story was also picked up on Patagonia's The Cleanest Line blog.

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