Published September 28, 2012 Fourteen thousand feet up in Peru’s
Cordillera Blanca, glaciologist Benjamin Morales stands in a
windswept dirt parking lot and looks across a rock-strewn slope.
In the 1980s and 90s, Morales says, thousands of people came
here to watch international ski tournaments. Back then, he says
“all this was ice.” The skiers raced down the glistening white
Pastoruri glacier, whose broad white ramp unfurled from 2,000
feet above nearly all the way to this dusty lot. Since then,
Morales has watched the glacier steadily melt away. Today, its
closest edge is about a mile from the parking lot. “It’s been
regressing year after year,” Morales says, “and this has caused
the most important adventure tourism site in Peru to be all but
closed.” Morales knows that the Pastoruri glacier is hardly
unique. Glaciers around the world are falling victim to global
warming. Here in Peru, Morales estimates the Andes have already
lost at least 25 percent of their ice. And what’s at stake here
is more than just