West Rongbuk Glacier, 1921 and 2008. At 29,028 feet, Mount Everest is the world's tallest mountain. Three major glaciers on the northern side of the mountain, the West, Main, and East Rongbuk Glaciers, have shrunk by 300-400 vertical feet along their entire course, and are retreating at an alarming rate.

The mighty Himalayan glaciers are vanishing. The rate of recession is unprecedented and accelerating. If the present rate of melting continues, many of these glaciers will be gone by the middle of this century, disrupting the perennial water supply to hundreds of millions of people at the least. Explore this extraordinary and growing collection of glacier images from the “roof of the world”,” made possible by mountaineer and filmmaker David Breashers, Founder and Project Leader of the Glacier Research Imaging Project (GRIP).

On Thinner Ice