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Hikers walking next to the Fee glacier above the Swiss Alps resort of Saas-Fee
Hikers walking next to the Fee glacier above the Swiss Alps resort of Saas-Fee on Saturday. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images
Hikers walking next to the Fee glacier above the Swiss Alps resort of Saas-Fee on Saturday. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images

Heatwaves put classic Alpine hiking routes off-limits

This article is more than 1 year old

Routes that are usually safe at this time of year now face hazards as a result of warmer temperatures

Little snow cover and glaciers melting at an alarming rate in Europe’s heatwaves have put some classic Alpine hiking routes off-limits.

Usually at the height of summer tourists flock to the Alps and seek out well-trodden paths up to some of its peaks. But with warmer temperatures – which scientists say are driven by climate change – speeding up glacier melt and thawing permafrost, routes that are usually safe at this time of year now face hazards such as falling rocks released from the ice.

“Currently in the Alps, there are warnings for around a dozen peaks, including emblematic ones like Matterhorn and Mont Blanc,” said Pierre Mathey, the head of the Swiss mountain guide association.

He said this was happening far earlier in the season than normal. “Usually we see such closures in August, but now they have started at the end of June and are continuing in July.”

Representatives of Alpine guides who usually lead thousands of hikers up towards Europe’s highest peak announced last week that they would suspend ascents on the most classic routes up Mont Blanc, which straddles France, Italy and Switzerland.

The Guide Alpine Italiane said on its Facebook page that the “particularly delicate conditions” caused by the high temperatures had made it necessary to postpone the climbs.

Mountain guides have also refrained – reportedly for the first time in a century – from offering tours up the classic route to the Jungfrau peak in Switzerland. And they have advised against tours along routes on the Italian and Swiss sides of the pyramid-shaped Matterhorn peak.

Ezio Marlier, the president of the Valle D’Aosta guides association, said having to steer clear of routes most coveted by tourists was a blow after the Covid slowdowns. “It is not easy … after two almost empty seasons to decide to halt work,” he said.

He stressed that the Italian Alpine region had shut only two and that there were many other breathtaking and safe routes to take. But he lamented that many people cancelled their trip when they heard that their preferred route was off-limits.

“There are plenty of other things to do, but usually when people want Mont Blanc, they want Mont Blanc,” Marlier said.

Climbing on some of the thousands of glaciers dotting Europe’s largest mountain range is also proving trickier.

“The glaciers are in a state that they are usually in at the end of the summer or even later,” said Andreas Linsbauer, a glaciologist at Zurich University. “It is sure that we will break the record for negative melts.”

He said a combination of factors were contributing to a “really extreme” summer, starting with exceptionally little snowfall last winter, meaning there was less to protect the glaciers.

Sand blew up from the Sahara early in the year, darkening the snow, which makes it melt faster. And heatwaves hit Europe in May, June and July, pushing up temperatures even at high altitudes.

The rapid melting can make glaciers more dangerous, as seen with the sudden collapse of Italy’s until then seemingly harmless Marmolada glacier this month, in which 11 people were killed as ice and rock hurtled down the mountain.

While scientists have yet to draw clear conclusions on what caused the disaster, one theory is that meltwater may have reached the point where the glacier was frozen to the rock, loosening its grip.

Mylene Jacquemart, a glacier and mountain hazard researcher at the Swiss university ETH Zurich, said there were many unknowns about the catastrophe. “But the general theme is definitely that more meltwater … makes things complicated and potentially more dangerous.”

Mathey also voiced concern that meltwater filtering under a glacier posed an “additional and invisible threat”. But despite the challenges, he voiced confidence that guides would find solutions, seeking out alternative routes to keep showing off Alpine splendours.

“Resilience is really in the mountain guides’ DNA,” as is adaptability, he said. “Humans have to adapt to nature and to the mountains, not the other way around.”

More on this story

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