Before It's Gone: On Watching a Place Disappear

Of the roughly 150 glaciers that once ringed Glacier National Park's peaks in the 1850s, about 25 to 27 remain today, and the U.S. Geological Survey expects them gone by 2030. Will they still call it Glacier National Park?

This is why so many people want to go now, and why going carelessly makes the ache worse. Last-chance tourism isn't new, but it's rarely named as the thing so many of us are already doing — rushing toward a place because it's disappearing, and in that rush, adding to the traffic and strain that hastens the disappearing.

The real question was never whether to go. It's how, and who takes you there.

A drive through the park in a private vehicle, timed to nothing but your own schedule, adds to a road system already near capacity. A trip built around hiking and paddling instead of scenic driving — run through a local outfitter like the Blackfeet-owned Sun Tours — moves at a pace the land can hold, and puts money directly into the community that has stewarded this place for far longer than it's had a name on a list.

Grief is a reasonable response to watching something melt. So is care. The work is making sure the second one shapes how you show up for the first — met with wonder, not haste, and with people who know this land as home rather than backdrop.

We build every GATHER trip around exactly this question. If a disappearing place has been calling you, I'd love to help you go there well.