090725_5904

A ruptured green balloon lies among ice worms, slowly photodegrading on the Whitechuck Glacier, on the slopes south of Glacier Peak in Washington's North Cascades. The glacier has retreated rapidly in the last century, and is likely do disappear entirely in our own - ice worms, adapted to life on the glacier surface, will disappear with it. The balloon, carelessly set free and fallen as litter, will never quite vanish; broken down by weathering, it will be eternalized as small, mobile fragments poisoning the soil, water and food chain.

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Filename: 090725_5904.JPG
Copyright: Ethan Welty
Image Size: 900x600 / 238.8KB; www.weltyphotography.com
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A ruptured green balloon lies among ice worms, slowly photodegrading on the Whitechuck Glacier, on the slopes south of Glacier Peak in Washington's North Cascades. The glacier has retreated rapidly in the last century, and is likely do disappear entirely in our own - ice worms, adapted to life on the glacier surface, will disappear with it. The balloon, carelessly set free and fallen as litter, will never quite vanish; broken down by weathering, it will be eternalized as small, mobile fragments poisoning the soil, water and food chain.