As I said in the last entry, Peru’s coast is home to one of the driest deserts in the world. Despite the constant fog, it almost never rains — my tour guide for an exhibit in Lima told me that the last time there was heavy rain was 35 years ago.

   All of the water for the city comes from the mountains, where it falls as rain or snow and then melts, filling the rivers. During the dry season, half of the year, almost all of the water is from melting snow and ice. Unfortuantely, almost all of these glaciers are going to melt and dissapear in the next 50 years. It is unclear where Peruvians will get their water from when the glaciers are gone.

   The country’s energy supply is also at risk. According to people I talked to at PROCLIM, a project aimed at preparing Peru for global warming, 80% of Peru’s electricity is hydroelectric, and, during the dry season, 80% of the water in the dams is from glacial runoff. Unless investment for huge new dams is found, Peru might have to switch to using fossil fuels to produce its electricity.

   All of this will take place in a country where I have already seen many water problems. Most of the towns and cities I have been in (including parts of Lima) have certain hours of the day when the city does not provide water. In one rural area east of the Cordillera Blanca, I met a man working for the government whose job it is to resolve water disputes. ‘It is a big problem here. I have to make sure that each day the water goes to a different house.’ A farmer I stayed with near the coast pointed to a number of his crops and said that they would be twice as high if not for a shortage of water. And every person who lives near a stream tells me the same story: the streams are more variable than they used to be. In the dry season there is less water, and in the rainy season there is more — just as one would expect from a decreasing snow pack. (To be fair, this is also due to deforestation as well as loss of snow and ice.)

   Loosing the glaciers and snow of the mountains will be a major loss for Peru. The only solution may be to build many new resivours in the mountains. But, what valleys will they choose to flood? What will happen to the people living in these valleys? And, how will Peru, a poor country, find the investment for such expensive projects?

   The city of Huaraz sits directly beneath the Cordillera Blanca, a massive mountain range that rises over 22,000 ft and has the world’s largest number of tropical glaciers. All of these glaciers, however, are melting rapidly — some studies estimate that over half of the existing glaciers will melt in the next 20 years and, within the next 50 years almost the ice could be gone.

   In Huaraz, I met researchers at INRENA (Instituto Nacional de Recursos Naturals), who monitor the glaciers. ”Everywhere you look” they told me, ”you can see exposed rock beneath the glaciers or glacial lakes. That is where the glaciers reached less than a century ago.” In a few days in the mountains, I took the photos below of various glaciers — in every case you can see the glaciers used to reach far below. According to one local, the glacier shown on the right used to reach where I am sitting to take the picture.

   There are few things I enjoy more than a view across high mountaintops, and, after a mountaineering guide convinced to front the money, I was soon following the guide out of Huaraz to attempt a climb of Vallunaraju. We would climb the nearly 19,000 ft peak in just one morning, leaving our 14,000 ft base camp at midnight, hiking to the base of the glacier at 16,000 ft, and then using rope and crampons to reach the summit.

   The morning we choose was perfect — not a cloud in the sky, and, after hiking beneath the stars for hours, we watched the sunrise over the glaciated peaks. Climbing further, we neared the top just before 8AM. Ten meters from the summit, however, we encountered an ice wall that would have required steep climbing with rock cliffs below. Although my guide was ready to lead, I decided that I did not need to climb higher, as I was more than happy with the view that we had.

   Loosing these glaciers will cause major water problems in Peru, something that I will talk about in my next post. It will also hurt the tourism industry in Huaraz as people visit these mountains to see the snow capped peaks. To me personally, though, it is sad to look across these mountains and realize that in 50 years, this view will be gone.