Aletsch Glacier

Ice WorldsValais,Switzerland

The largest body of ice in the Alps: a frozen Swiss river twenty kilometres long and 900 metres thick, looked down on from cable-car ridges.

September·Peaking now

Jul–Sep

The main season: summer sun strips the last winter snow off the glacier, leaving bare, pale-blue ice. All four ridge viewpoints — Eggishorn, Bettmerhorn, Moosfluh and Hohfluh — are running, and the marked glacier and high-altitude trails are open and dry.

Year-round The twenty-kilometre glacier winds down year-round; summer, July to September, strips the winter snow to bare blue ice and opens the ridge cable cars and trails.

The Great Aletsch Glacier is the largest body of ice in the Alps, a frozen river more than twenty kilometres long coiling down from the high Bernese Oberland. At Konkordiaplatz, a wide ice basin high in the range, four separate firn fields flow together into one stream close to 900 metres thick. That is deeper than most mountains are tall. Long dark stripes run the length of the surface, tracing the ice's route like grain in a plank. From above, the glacier reads as a road rather than a field of snow. It lies at the heart of Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch, inscribed in 2001 as the first World Heritage Site in the Alps and the largest glaciated area in western Eurasia. The best views come from the ridges above the ice rather than from the ice itself. Cable cars rise from the car-free villages of the Aletsch Arena to the balconies of Eggishorn, Bettmerhorn and Moosfluh. From those heights the glacier curves away between bare rock walls toward the horizon, pale blue where the summer sun has stripped the winter snow off it. On the slopes just below grows a forest of Swiss stone pines, some of the oldest trees in the country. The Aletsch you see now is a diminished one. It has drawn back more than three kilometres since 1870, loses over fifty metres of length a year, and glaciologists expect most of the ice to be gone by the end of this century. To stand on a ridge and watch it bend into the distance is to see the Alps at their largest scale, and to see it going.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Come on a clear morning — the ice reads sharpest in early light, and cloud often rolls up the valley to swallow the view by afternoon.
Leave the car in the valley at Fiesch, Betten or Mörel — the trailhead villages of Riederalp, Bettmeralp and Fiescheralp are car-free and reached only by cable car.
The ridge lifts and glacier trails run roughly late June to October — outside that window most cable cars shut down and the panorama paths lie under snow.
The glacier is full of hidden crevasses — stepping onto the ice is only for roped parties with a mountain guide, but the marked ridge trails give the views without the danger.
The Aletsch Arena sees far fewer crowds than the Jungfraujoch — the ridge balconies above the ice stay comparatively quiet, while the tunnel railway draws the tour buses.

Things to do

1
Ride up to the Eggishorn
A cable car lifts you from Fiescheralp to the Eggishorn at 2,869 metres, the highest viewpoint in the region. From the rocky summit the full curve of the glacier unwinds below you, and on a clear day the Matterhorn and the Bernese giants ring the skyline. For the most head-on look — straight up the ice to Konkordiaplatz, where its four arms merge into one — take the short lift and walk to Moosfluh above Riederalp instead.
2
Rope up for a guided glacier trek
With crampons and a mountain guide you can step onto the ice itself, picking a way between blue crevasses and the debris-streaked moraines of the upper glacier. It is the only safe way to feel the sheer scale of the Aletsch from its surface rather than from a ridge above.
3
Take the train up to the Jungfraujoch
A cog railway tunnels through the Eiger and Mönch to the Jungfraujoch, at 3,454 metres the highest railway station in Europe. From the Sphinx terrace you look down over the snowfields at the glacier's very source, high above the ridge viewpoints most visitors use.
4
Walk the ridge-top panorama trail
A marked balcony path runs along the crest above the ice, linking Bettmerhorn with Hohfluh by way of Moosfluh. The glacier stays beside you the whole way, curving between bare rock walls, and Moosfluh is the one point that looks straight up the ice to Konkordiaplatz, where the four arms merge into one. That is where the sheer length of the Aletsch registers all at once. In autumn the larches on the slopes below turn gold.

Watch

Nearby

21 km