Mount Rainier's climbing season has shrunk by around twenty percent in five years due to melting glaciers and low snowpack. The Cascade mountains now hold just twenty-nine percent of their historic average snow-water equivalent. Three of Rainier's twenty-nine glaciers have vanished since 2021. Guides warn of dangerous rockfall, exposed ice, and crowded routes as conditions worsen. The crisis affects not just climbers but the water supply for millions of people across the American West.