Marys Colorado glacier completely melted due to extreme heat

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A major report has found that 12.5 trillion tons of ice from Greenland and Antarctica have melted since 1979. The massive glacier melt is mainly attributed to warmer waters eroding the ice sheets from below and the sides.

So it is disappearing, as well as a lot of the other glaciers in Colorado are slowly disappearing," Bellinger said. Bellinger says the ice field has been there since humans have been in Colorado, but warming climate is threatening St. Mary's Glacier and all the state's ice fields and glaciers.

The winter of 2025-2026 was one of the driest on record, followed by extreme heat in March that decimated the snowpack statewide. That warm weather has continued throughout the summer.

Colorado’s iconic St. Mary’s Glacier has melted away for the first time in at least a century, a victim of rising temperatures in the high country, according to a glaciologist with Colorado State University.

Today, it’s mostly visited as a hiking destination, reachable via a 1.5-mile trail. That said, St. Mary’s Glacier failed to stick around this year, fading away following a season of limited snowfall, notably high summer temperatures, and ...

St. Mary’s Glacier has been a wildly popular destination for skiers to get a few summertime turns near Denver. For the first time in memory, the snowfield has completely melted away.

Mary’s is a “perennial snowfield” rather than an actual glacier, McGrath said. That does not make its disappearance any less significant, he said. This winter’s record-low snowpack and 2026’s hottest average summer temperatures devastated it, and those conditions are also shrinking the state’s actual glaciers, including the Arapaho Glacier in the Indian Peaks Wilderness in Boulder County and the Andrews Glacier in Rocky Mountain National Park.

St. Mary's Glacier is a perennial snowfield that, according to scientists, is a remnant of glaciers. At least it was, until it melted.