More tourists are eager to visit vanishing glaciers and ice caves, but warming is also making the sites unstable.
An American tourist was visiting an ice cave in one of Europe’s largest national parks last month when a frozen arch collapsed, killing him and injuring his girlfriend.
While the accident in Iceland cannot be directly linked to climate change, experts say that, as temperatures increase, the recession and disappearance of glaciers has popularized a new form of adventure travel called “last chance tourism.”
As more people rush to see glaciers before they melt, places like Iceland have benefited from a booming tourism economy. Half a million people now visit Iceland for glacier tours every year, according to Elin Sigurveig Sigurdardottir, chief of operations for Icelandic Mountain Guides, an agency that leads trips on a separate glacier within Vatnajokull National Park, where the accident took place.
The American couple was on a tour at the foot of the Breidamerkurjokull glacier, which has ice caves, formed from meltwater, known for their brilliant blue walls. They’re most accessible at the base of glaciers, which are massive frozen rivers of compressed ice and snow that creep slowly down mountain slopes.
The Icelandic park service has temporarily suspended ice cave tours while the authorities review the episode and emergency procedures.
“It’s a good example of the consequence that climate change can have on glacier tourism,” Emmanuel Salim, an assistant professor of geography at the University of Toulouse in France, said of the accident.