One of Colorado’s most iconic nature attractions reached a dark milestone this month when St. Mary’s Glacier fully melted for the first time in recorded history, Colorado Public Radio reported.
The Arapaho National Forest landmark, technically a semi-permanent snowfield rather than a glacier because it does not move as a mass, has long drawn visitors looking for year-round hikes and adventures in the snow.
Scientists say St. Mary’s Glacier fell victim to a dry 2025-26 winter followed by an extremely hot summer.
“We got nearly no snow last winter, and then we had a blazing hot summer, one of the hottest on record,” Matthew Siegfried, associate professor of geophysics at Colorado School of Mines, told CPR News. “When you have very little input and you have a lot of melt, that’s a great recipe to make a glacier disappear.”
Photos of the area posted to Seth’s Weather Group, a popular Colorado Facebook group, show a rocky ravine where snow once held fast throughout the year.
“Sad to see but a sign of the times. A clearly visible example of the impacts of climate change,” the group’s founder Seth Linden wrote in response to the photos. “Going to need either a huge snow season (or two or three) with relatively cooler temps. I’m worried it may never be cold-enough in the near term for the snow-field to reform more permanently again.”
Other snowfields, such as the Arapaho Glacier in the Indian Peaks Wilderness, have held on because they do not rely solely on snowfall. They also rely on wind-blown snowdrifts and avalanches, as Dan McGrath, glaciologist and associate professor at Colorado State University, explained to the Colorado Sun.
While Siegfried, McGrath and other researchers agree that this is a harbinger of drier winters and hotter summers to come, there’s good news. In the short term, a silver lining on a literal rain cloud, is that a record-setting El Niño could mean that Colorado sees a wetter start to the winter than it has in recent memory, as reported by The Aspen Times.
READ MORE: Your Centennial State bucket list: 8 unforgettable natural wonders in Colorado to explore
