Fox Glacier, New Zealand. 2012.
Step by step our small group followed our guide through the valley. The mountains towered over us, at some points shooting up so stubbornly it was as if one day they decided to just stand up right out of the earth. Moss covered ancient stones. The air was wet and heavy. We eventually started to reach the ice, my heart bursting with joy, and began making our way up Fox Glacier. I can still hear my boots crunching on the ice underneath me. As we made our way up up up, the edges of the ice cut and curved around us.
The ice danced in the sunlight, black and blue. Once powerful enough to cut a valley out of those mountains.
Last night, a world away, I was in bed reading through my writings and reflections from my working holiday in New Zealand in 2012. I stumbled upon this quote from that day on Fox Glacier 7 years ago:
“It was a very scary thought as the guide told us how much the glacier has been shrinking. In two years, they have lost 40 meters of height. They showed us steps that they used to have to climb to get onto the glacier, only two years ago. Today, those steps are probably 100 feet above us and completely inaccessible. I felt privileged to be on such a geological phenomenon that may disappear within my lifetime.”
But the reality is, only 7 years later... 7 years later, Fox Glacier is now completely inaccessible by foot. The ice I was standing on is gone. Gone.
Reports say that in the last 8 years the glacier has receded half a mile (800 m). The ice has receded to the point that it is far too dangerous to allow people to even try. Only helicopters can reach the top. A century of adventurers climbing the glacier from the valley floor has ended. And New Zealand just had the second hottest March on record.
I realize everything is impermanent. Glaciers recede, they grow. But not like this. Never before like this. Never before because of us. Never before could we have stopped it and instead, looked away. But I can’t look away.
Do you know how heavy it is to watch places that changed your life disappear, only to be told it’s not happening?
I can only hope. No, actually, I can only work. But I’m hurting.
I’m black and blue. Powerful enough to cut a valley out of a mountain.