This is How Current Glacier Health and the Future of Year-Round Skiing in the Oregon Cascades Looks

A summer skier’s day often starts long before the sun. In the dark, packs are checked, breakfast is hastily consumed, and routes are looked over one more time by headlamp before starting the long ascent to the snow line. Few are around to see dim silhouettes trudge uphill, skis A-framed to their packs and hiking boots kicking up dust as the most devoted of us start their climb into the high alpine. While for most there is an implicit acknowledgment that the skiing won’t be very good, especially in the dog days of August and early September, there is an underlying solace in the knowledge that it will be possible, especially in the Pacific Northwest, thanks to the year-round glaciers and snowfields that exist high in the mountains.

The confidence that undergirds movements like Turns All Year, however, is quietly slipping. In a recent article published in The Annals of Glaciology, the authors documented the health of 34 glaciers in the Oregon Cascades. Using five years of field observations, the team found that “five glaciers have disappeared, four have almost disappeared and eight are critically endangered,” noting that these severe impacts make up half of the named glaciers in the Oregon Cascades. Some of the glaciers impacted are broadly known, like the Zigzag Glacier on Mt. Hood, visible from the Timberline ski resort below, while others barely survive right under our noses, like the Crook Glacier in Central Oregon, responsible for feeding Tumalo Creek, the source of Bend’s drinking water.

The study, written by Anders Carlson and a team of climate researchers, uses the categories of “retreating,” “critically endangered,” “almost disappeared,” and “disappeared” to chart the impacted glaciers. They note that, out of the 34 glaciers that existed in the Oregon Cascades in 2000, 15% have gone extinct, 12% are predicted to disappear in the next few years, and 24% will disappear by 2050. These changes are attributed to a warming climate. In addition to increased frequency of spring heatwaves in the Pacific Northwest, the average temperature from May to October in the Oregon Northern Cascades has warmed at “0.3 [degrees Celsius] from 1980 to 2024.”  The study goes on to conclude that “glacier retreat and disappearance will continue in the Oregon Cascades until this warming trend is reversed.”

The observations in the published study end in 2024, but the disappearance of ice and snow in the Cascades takes on new significance in the context of the abysmal 2025-2026 season so far. The current snowpack in the Oregon Cascades sits at about 30% of the median, and while the exact percentage fluctuates as we move through the season, there is wide agreement that so far it is one of the worst snowfall seasons on record. When asked how impactful these single seasons of poor snowfall can be to glacier health, Anders Carlson, President of the Oregon Glaciers Institute, stated that although “the long-term warming trend is the 500 pound gorilla in the room, what these dry winters can do is exacerbate the warming, too.” He went on to explain that the winter period is when glaciers should be collecting more snow, and when they do not, “it takes less time or less heat, summer heat, to get rid of the snow and expose the ice, and then you start burning through the ice, and you’re no longer protected by your fat reserves,” meaning “the same summer temperature will have a much greater impact on the glacier,” making it a “force multiplier.”

One way to see the impact of these single year events is by looking to the past. The 2014-2015 season had a marginal snowpack similar to what we are currently seeing, and was followed by one of the warmest summers on record in 2015. This weather anomaly, related to a marine heatwave off the coast called the Blob, “wiped away all the prior years’ snow accumulation on the glacier.” Carlson explains that, under stable conditions, “you normally have some snow left on the glacier every year. And so you should see layers of snow going back for decades that are slowly transitioning to ice,” but when observing the Crook Glacier near Bend, Oregon in 2020, “all we saw was four layers of snow and ice. So that 2015 year just completely removed all prior years’ accumulations of snow.” The multiplying impacts of these low snow years, coupled with the broader trend of human-driven climate change, lead us closer and closer to a future without these long-existing glaciers.

So what does all of this mean for winter recreation? This season, the impacts are tangible across most of the American West, with many resorts delaying their openings and limiting terrain. The Pacific Northwest in general is touted for its volcano season—generally stretching from spring into early summer as backcountry skiers sequentially attempt ski descents of peaks in the region on the hunt for their yearly corn harvest. As glaciers melt and the climate warms, however, many of these spring objectives will have to shift forward to be skied earlier in the season, and dangers surrounding rockfall and crevasses could increase and lead to traditional summer mountaineering routes becoming less accessible. Carlson goes on to mention that “precisely what is predicted for what will happen to the winter snow sports season because of global warming is occurring. The season shortens, it moves forward, and then in our lower elevation areas, like we have here in the Pacific Northwest, we’re getting hammered with rain.”

While we trip over our own two feet and stumble forward on the path towards human-induced climate change, researchers like Carlson remind us that these changes are not yet irreversible. “Glaciers can regrow,” he mentions while outlining the importance of ending our emissions, “we can get back to a climate like we used to, and we can bring back winter sports.”

As we continue to monitor the health of our glaciers and planet, these words echo an important reminder that the current state of winter recreation is more precarious than many of us would like to admit. However, by moving forward with care and intention, we can ensure that in the summers ahead, early risers will still see the dim silhouettes of A-framed skis moving uphill in the pre-dawn twilight.