Aletsch Glacier

Alps · glaciers · Switzerland · climate

Biggest Alpine glacier. The Aletsch Glacier is the largest glacier in all the Alps, stretching about 23 kilometers long and covering an area the size of a medium city.

Made of four glaciers. This giant glacier is actually formed by four smaller glaciers that all meet together at a place called Konkordiaplatz, where the ice is so thick it reaches 905 meters deep (almost a kilometer).

Creates a river. The glacier flows toward the Rhône valley and creates a river called the Massa, which carries cold glacier water down the mountainside.

Melting and shrinking. Like most glaciers today, the Aletsch is retreating because of warming temperatures, losing more than a kilometer of length since 1980 and getting hundreds of meters thinner.