In high school in the mid 1970s I had science teacher that led his more intrepid students on a fairly long hike every summer up to the Carbon Glacier on Mount Rainier. It is the lowest, thickest, longest and biggest glacier in the United States outside of Alaska. It was a long hike back then. Unfortunately, it is a much longer hike these days because the road that we departed from was washed out nearly ten years ago and never repaired.
We brought survey equipment with us and each year we measured where the snout was located and also measurements of the size of the glacier. We also took photographs. Then we hiked further up the mountain and went out on the glacier and took more measurements. When we returned to our classroom we made graphs using our measurements and photographs.
At that time of course the concern was global cooling and the glacier did not disappoint because our measurements showed that it had been getting larger and slowly progressing down the hill when compared to pictures and measurements from other classes. One would think that this being the largest, longest and lowest glacier in the lower United States that there would be lots of interest in it by people concerned about global warming and receding glaciers.
My guess is that if the glacier was playing ball with the global warming alarmists that seem to control the Mt. Rainier National Park these days... they would probably not only repair the road that brought us to the trailhead back in the 1970s, but lengthen it so that everyone could take a look at the incredible shrinking glacier. Instead the road closure makes it very difficult to make it to the glacier and back without spending the night.
I have tried to find out if the glacier is still growing, shrinking, or staying about the same using internet searches. Looking at recent pictures, Google Maps, etc... I really cannot tell for sure. I went up there once in the late 1980s and nothing had really changed. To me recent pictures look nearly the same as the last time that I saw it... same location, same size, everything, just harder to get to. Some how I have a sneaking suspicion, if the largest, longest, and lowest glacier in the lower 48 states was shrinking that we would be hearing a lot about it. I looked through a lot of search results and found nothing to contradict my observation that the glacier hasn’t changed much in the 40 years since I first saw it up close and personal. I also have been corresponding with a person who retired after working nearly his entire career at Mt. Rainier National Park and he also felt that the glacier had not changed much in the last 40 years.
There are no climate change deniers, climate change has been happening ever since the Earth was formed. Change is a continuing constant in climate. It will continue to change till the Sun explodes. Man is just a brief observer. Adapt or die.