Studying Oregon’s glaciers, from beneath and inside out

We’ve heard about the melting of the polar ice caps, but a group of Central Oregonians has been doing research on — and in, and under — Oregon’s glaciers. which it said are disappearing fast.

“A lot of the mountains in Oregon, like the ones right nearby, the Three Sisters, are glaciated — they have small glaciers on them,” expedition leader Eddy Cartaya said Tuesday.

For the past five years, the group of climbers, cavers, explorers and rescuers has spent a lot of time (and money) studying glacial melting. Although it’s a global study, they’re the ones monitoring glaciers here in our backyard.

They are looking at glacial caves on Mt. Rainier, Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Hood, to see how their size changes each year. And they are crowdfunding their effort to study glaciers from beneath the ice — not from the top down.

“A lot of the ice is melting away very quickly, whether on the polar caps, the glacier caves. Not only on our three mountains of interest, but around, the world we are seeing a lot of loss of ice,” said co-leader Brett McGregor.

It’s a mix of mountaineering, caving and science that is not quite like what’s been done before.

If you would like to learn more, get involved or donate, visit https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/glacier-cave-explorers–3#/ .