Glacier Highways

As a docent with Berkeley’s Shorebird Park Nature Center, I’ve told visitors that not all that long ago it was possible to walk to the Farallon Islands, 27 miles to the west of the Golden Gate. This is because 18,000 or so years ago (a blink of the eye in geological time) the ocean level is estimated to have been nearly 400 feet lower than it is today. It is thought the lower ocean level permitted humans to travel across the Bering Land Bridge from Asia and begin to populate North America, but there’s no evidence of humans in the Bay Area until about 5,500 years ago. I knew the oceans had been lower in the past because it was colder and the water was locked in glaciers, but until traveling along hundreds of miles of roads located in the beautiful valleys and surrounding mountains carved by the glaciers, I hadn’t appreciated (and probably still don’t) just how massive and powerful the glaciers were. The trip this summer has given me a new perspective on global warming. The photograph was taken headed north on Highway 97 near Prince George in British Columbia. Beginning in the town of Weed in northern California, I traveled the length of Highway 97 to the border of the Yukon Territory when the road becomes Highway 1.