Part of a series of articles titled Photographing Change in Glacier National Park.
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Repeat Photos of Grinnell Glacier
These two image show, approximately, what George Bird Grinnell’s namesake glacier looked like when he saw it for the first time, on the left, and when he saw it last, on the right.
Left image
Grinnell Glacier in 1887 by Lt. Beacom
Right image
Grinnell Glacier around 1920 by T.J. Hileman
George Bird Grinnell visited the Many Glacier Valley, where he would have gotten his first glimpses of Grinnell Glacier, in 1886. The next year he hiked up closer to the massive ice with a camera. Grinnell’s pictures of the glacier did not turn out very well. Luckily, he was travelling with Lieutenant John H. Beacom who was a more skilled photographer!
Beacom took the left image of Grinnell Glacier spilling out of the mountains. Getting to this vantage was not as easy as it is today. At that time in 1887, there were no official trails and no printed maps. In fact, there was no Glacier National Park. It wouldn’t be established until 1910.
Grinnell and Beacom had to bushwhack and rock climb up to the ice. It was a tough but inspiring climb. Inspiring enough that Grinnell would continue to visit the area—and the glacier—for the rest of his life. But more importantly, this and other experiences led him to eventually lobby for the creation of a national park to protect and preserve this landscape.
Today, the trail to Grinnell Glacier is one of the most popular hikes in the park.
Describing his namesake glacier in the 1890s, Grinnell speculated that, “The thickness of this mass of ice can scarcely be less than 100 feet and may be much more.”
The right image was taken more than thirty years later, around 1920. By then, a foot bridge was laid across the creek and trails led hikers up to the glacier with relative ease. Together, these images are likely the very first pair of repeat photographs taken in Glacier National Park.
T.J. Hileman from the Glacier National Park Archives
Like an ice cube, taken from the freezer and left on the counter, glaciers take time to react to a new climate.
In 1926, after Grinnell’s last visit to the glacier he wrote, “The glacier is melting very fast…” Indeed, the two images above show how Grinnell Glacier had shrunk and thinned in those 33 years.
Grinnell was witnessing the glacier react to a relatively natural change in the climate. The Little Ice Age, which was a cold period when the park’s current glaciers were at their largest, ended in the late 1800s as the climate started warming. The melting of the park’s glaciers in the late 1800s, was a mostly natural reaction to the end of the Little Ice Age. But at the time, Grinnell didn’t know why the glaciers were receding, or melting. He wrote, “These glaciers are melting rapidly and after a time will disappear.”
Now, a century later, two dozen of the park’s glaciers have not yet disappeared. But they have changed and repeat photography remains an excellent way to document that change.
Left image
Grinnell Glacier around 1920
Credit: T. J. Hileman Glacier National Park Archives
Right image
Grinnell Glacier not visible on August 31, 2021
Credit: Glacier National Park
The pair of images above, taken a century apart, clearly shows that Grinnell Glacier has not returned to its Little Ice Age size. To see more nuance, however, we’ll need to examine other repeat photographs.
The pair below, also of Grinnell Glacier but from a much different perspective, tell another story. The change seen in these images can largely be pinned on human-caused warming.
Left image
Grinnell Glacier summer 1941
Credit: National Park Service
Right image
Grinnell Glacier September 2, 2019
Credit: U.S. Geologic Survey
Repeating the 2019 image again in 2023 shows that Grinnell’s retreat hasn’t stopped in recent years.
Left image
Grinnell Glacier September 2, 2019
Credit: U.S. Geologic Survey
Right image
Grinnell Glacier August 19, 2023
Credit: National Park Service
Photos from U.S. Geologic Survey and National Park Service
If we expand the time span slightly, and compare 2016 to 2023, and change the perspective, the decline in recent years is clear. In recent years, Grinnell Glacier has shrunk not just its footprint, but its thickness as well.
Grinnell Glacier from Grinnell Ridge
Left image
Grinnell Glacier on September 27, 2016 by Lisa McKeon with USGS
Right image
Grinnell Glacier on September 16, 2023
A wide-angle photograph of the glacier allows us to make more accurate assessments. This pair of images expands the time span slightly and improves the perspective. These images show that, in recent years, Grinnell Glacier has shrunk not just its footprint, but its thickness as well. Glaciers react to climatic shifts in three dimensions and repeat photographs that show that are the most helpful.
Along with repeat photos, scientists use a variety of other methods to determine how a glacier is changing. While repeat photos are helpful and good visual tool, they only tell a part of the story. To fully understand the recent and predicted melt of the park’s glaciers, scientists use a variety of data. But, repeat photos provide relevant and interesting snapshots of change just as Grinnell noted long ago.
Along with repeat photos, scientists use a variety of other methods to determine how a glacier is changing. While repeat photos are helpful and good visual tool, they only tell a part of the story. To fully understand the recent and predicted melt of the park’s glaciers, scientists use a variety of data. But, repeat photos provide relevant and interesting snapshots of change just as Grinnell noted long ago.
Taliaferro, John. 2019. Grinnell: America’s Environmental Pioneer and His Restless Drive to Save the West. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation. Pp. 165. “I estimate this glacier is at least a mile in width, where visible” he observed. “The thickness of this mass of ice can scarcely be less than 100 feet and may be much more.”
Pp. 502. “At the end of the climb to Grinnell Glacier, Grinnell fell twice while descending the trail. He arrived back at the hotel at sundown on weary legs. That night he wrote in his diary, “The glacier is melting very fast, and the amount of water coming from it is very great.” (According to Morton Elrod, the ice had receded sixty-five feet in the past year alone.)” “Then Grinnell added: “All these glaciers are melting rapidly and after a time will disappear.”
Pp. 502. “At the end of the climb to Grinnell Glacier, Grinnell fell twice while descending the trail. He arrived back at the hotel at sundown on weary legs. That night he wrote in his diary, “The glacier is melting very fast, and the amount of water coming from it is very great.” (According to Morton Elrod, the ice had receded sixty-five feet in the past year alone.)” “Then Grinnell added: “All these glaciers are melting rapidly and after a time will disappear.”
You can see more examples of repeat photography here.
Last updated: January 16, 2025