November 11, 2008
James Balog

Internationally acclaimed photographer James Balog is the founder and director of the Extreme Ice Survey. A former mountain guide with a graduate degree in geomorphology, James is equally at home on a Himalayan peak or a whitewater river, the African savannah or polar icecaps. James lives on a Rocky Mountain ridge top high above Boulder, Colorado with his wife Suzanne, and daughters Simone and Emily.

The local Greenlanders have nicknamed this the “Dead” glacier, because for decades it just sat in the same position, sloughing off a few icebergs but generally not doing much.
Yet it started slowly pulling back a few years ago. Our EIS cameras are catching a small, steady retreat, with the ice seeming to thin in the kilometer or so right behind the terminus, which probably indicates more retreat to come.

I love this site, because we’re on the ridge, on the side of the glacier, and it’s so high that we get a gorgeous view down onto ice and the fjord. It is an absolutely fantastic site for a summer camping trip, especially when the fog banks come rolling in from Disko Bay, sliding up the surface of the ice while we perch high above, watching, waiting