Wonderful! In Bucket-List Mode, President Obama Hikes Alone Up an Alaskan Glacier (BOG) [View all]

KENAI FJORDS NATIONAL PARK, Alaska — President Obama hiked alone up a gravel path toward Exit Glacier, gazing at a mass of flowing ice as it melted into the plain below.

“How’s this?” he marveled as he surveyed the terrain on a cloudless day. “Beats being in the office.”

Mr. Obama is in legacy-building mode here in Alaska, where he has come to talk about the rapidly unfolding effects of climate change and the urgent need to address it. He saw the consequences of global warming during his trek to the glacier, which has receded more than a mile over the past 200 years because of rising temperatures.

“This is as good a signpost of what we’re dealing with when it comes to climate change as just about anything,” Mr. Obama said.

But the president is also in bucket-list mode, increasingly determined to use his remaining 15 months in office to do and see spectacular things. These days, when Mr. Obama’s policy agenda overlaps with an irresistible sightseeing opportunity, he grabs it....

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/02/us/obama-relishes-hiking-at-an-alaskan-glacier-with-eye-to-his-legacy.html?src=twr&smid=tw-nytpolitics&smtyp=cur via New York Times