A recent climbing trip up Mount Olympus in Olympic National Park brought the bittersweet experience I’ve become all too familiar with as someone who spends much of his free time on glaciers.

On the one hand, the experience of being on ice that is thousands of years old and often hundreds if not thousands of feet thick is humbling. The accompanying awe of this reality, coupled with the sheer beauty of these landscapes carved by and now covered with glaciers is not to be missed.

Returning from the summit, after descending to the lower Blue…