A glacier is a magnificent sight to behold. Motion is implied in its shape seen from afar. Black smudges of silt and rock streak the celestial blue ice, like a well-traveled path. A little closer it has the look of a river frozen in time. I see in its crevasses, pockets, and layers a current and imagine one moment of a river rapid captured as in a photograph. Up close, within a hand’s reach, water drips, cascades and flushes out the inner recesses.
The slow steady movement of the glacier is downward but when paired with the fast melting in this warming period, this particular glacier, Exit Glacier, has been receding an average of 400 feet a year for the last 195 years. The plants around tell the story of its recession. Where the ice has most recently melted there lays exposed dark rock. It isn’t long, less than a year, before plants begin to grow from the rock – lichen, mosses and Dwarf Fireweed. Adding more green to the black, Alder comes next. These plants transform what was uninhabitable for other species into fertile ground as they add nitrates into the earth. Next come the cottonwoods and the willows. They too prefer the full sun exposure and they reach high, higher than the alders. It is the willows that provide the moose their favorite meal. Within 50 – 60 years, the ground, now fully covered, is rich and can support the young Sitka Spruce and Mountain Hemlock that have begun to mark their territory. Within 200 years these conifer beasts block the sunlight from their predecessors and a conifer forest presides. This gradual aging is evident all around the glacier, marking time with changes.
No comments:
Post a Comment