Mount Rainier shrinking (just a bit), new study finds John Ryan November 25, 2025 / 4:07 pm

The Pacific Northwest’s highest peak is a little less lofty than it used to be, according to a new study.

Mount Rainier is now 10 feet shorter than it was in the 1990s, according to a study in the journal Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research , and its summit has moved about the length of a football field to the southwest.

It’s not plate tectonics, volcanic activity, or erosion that has whittled the iconic peak of Washington state.

It’s climate change, researchers say.

Lead author Eric Gilbertson, a mechanical engineering professor at Seattle University, says 20 feet of ice has melted off Rainier’s summit, a perennially icy spot known as Columbia Crest, since 1998.

Rainier’s icecap h

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