Saint Mary’s Glacier and glacial lake, Colorado, August 2017 (photo from Wikimedia)

22 September 2026

St. Mary’s Glacier in Clear Creek County, Colorado is gone. The photo at top showed what it looked like nine years ago as seen from the shore of its glacial lake.

Here’s how it looked in Google satellite view.

screenshot of Google satellite map of St. Mary’s Glacier, Colorado taken on 22 Sept 2026

By late last week, 17 September 2026, it was gone.

Technically St. Mary’s was a permanent snowfield, not a glacier. Glaciers are made of dense ice that flows downhill under its own weight. A permanent snowfield is made of layers of snow and granular compacted snow that does not move. However a permanent snowfield is one that survives summer’s heat. This is the first time Saint Mary’s Glacier has completely melted in over one hundred years.

In case you’re wondering this “glacier” was in Colorado, not Montana. (Click here to see where St. Mary’s Glacier was located in Colorado.) There is a St. Mary’s region in Glacier National Park, Montana but none of the glaciers bear that name. I visited Glacier National Park in 2016.

If you want to see glaciers, visit them soon. They are disappearing around the world due to climate change.