We don’t mean to be Chicken Littles yelling about the sky falling, but when a bunch of scientists announce that Himalayan glaciers have shrunk as much as 20 percent in the last 30 years, we take notice.

The report said the highest rate of loss was in Nepal (21 percent) and Bhutan (22 percent). But another number jumped out at us, a new one which hadn’t been researched before: the best guess is there are 54,000 glaciers in the Himalayas, covering 60,000 square miles. We also read here that there are 25,000 plan and animal species in the area, and a larger diversity of forest types than the Amazon.

So no, the sky is not falling, but the glaciers appear to be shrinking. And the Himalayas are, and will continue to be, and amazing place to go touring and trekking.