Late one summer, my grandparents joined my brother and I in Anchorage, Alaska. They got in late and we stayed up until the early morning, not noticing the time because of the constant sunlight and the enjoyment of seeing family for the first time in a long while. Awoken too soon with not enough sleep, my grandparents, brother, and I set off on another adventure into Seward to hike Exit Glacier. My grandparents are self-proclaimed National Park junkies; they are always ecstatic to see a new site and hike a new trail. One would think that being in their 70’s they would be slow and fragile, but my grandpa, Dodo, was consistently eight paces ahead of my brother and I even when the air was getting thinner and the climb getting harder. Luckily, Exit Glacier is a relatively easy hike. We wound up the trail that led us along the river, its banks lined with beautiful wildflowers and wet rocks glistening under the Alaskan sun. We stopped to take a snack break, dipping our hands in the freezing water, marveling over how we could see all the way to the bottom of the river because of how clear the water was. The water was runoff from Exit Glacier, and we found chunks of glacier in the water. My brother and I made it a game to see who could find the biggest chunk and hold it for the longest.
Around twenty minutes later, our hands numbed from the chill of the glacier we continued our journey along the trail. It quickly became incredibly windy and very chilly, but we were right next to the glacier. It was dirtier than I expected- not nearly as pretty of a blue up close, but more of a gray. But it was so much larger than I expected it to be. Standing next to it with my brother, I felt minuscule. We could not hike the glacier itself, we did not have the gear nor the correct trail, but standing there in complete awe over the entire concept of this glacier was an experience I never knew I needed. To be standing next to this piece of history that was there even before Columbus “discovered” America was mind boggling, but to know that this landmark, this piece of history that has seen so many years is just crumbling before us because we as humans cannot take care of the planet that we live on.
