, photo = UntererGrindelwaldgletscher 01.jpg , photo_caption = Above the glacier lake the scrawny leftovers of the former much larger Lower Grindelwald Glacier (dark, polluted part) directly below of the blue-white ''Ischmeer'' (lit.: Ice Sea) and the

Fiescherhörner Grosses Fiescherhorn is a mountain peak of the Bernese Alps, located on the border between the cantons of Bern and ValaisValais, halfway between the Mönch and the Finsteraarhorn. At above sea level, its summit culminates over the whole Fiesch ...

( a.s.l., The Horns of Fiesch). On the very right a nameless peak () and the

Ostegg The Eiger () is a mountain of the Bernese Alps, overlooking Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen in the Bernese Oberland of Switzerland, just north of the main watershed and border with Valais. It is the easternmost peak of a ridge crest that extends a ...

(, lit.: Eastern Corner), two peaks of the

Hörnli Hörnli mountain is located on the territory of the community of Fischenthal, in the Zürcher Oberland, in the eastern part of canton of Zürich, in Switzerland. It is high. North of the Hörnli, the ''Dreiländerstein'', altitude , marks ...

, the eastern extension of the Eiger. On the left and above the glacier lake the green ''Bänisegg'' behind which the glacier's connection to its source used to be. View from ''Bäregg'' (, lit.: Bear's Corner). This valley used to be filled with ice as thick as up to (picture from July 2009). , type = Alpine , location =

Canton of Berne The canton of Bern or Berne (german: Kanton Bern; rm, Chantun Berna; french: canton de Berne; it, Canton Berna) is one of the 26 cantons forming the Swiss Confederation. Its capital city, Bern, is also the ''de facto'' capital of Switzerland. ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, coords = , area = , length = , elevation_max = , elevation_min = , terminus = glacier lake (Weisse Lütschine (a tributary of the

Schwarze Lütschine Schwarze may refer to: * Achim Schwarze (born 1958), German author * Schwarze Elster The Black Elster or Schwarze Elster () is a long river in eastern Germany, in the states Saxony, Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt, right tributary of the Elbe. Its ...

)) , thickness = , status = fast retreating , map = Switzerland#Alps , label_position = top , map_alt = , map_caption = , embedded = The Lower Grindelwald Glacier (german: Unterer Grindelwaldgletscher) is a

Glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...

in the

Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina *Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses *Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internation ...

Bernese Alps , topo_map= Swiss Federal Office of Topography swisstopo , photo=BerneseAlps.jpg , photo_caption=The Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau , country= Switzerland , subdivision1_type=Cantons , subdivision1= , parent= Western Alps , borders_on= , l ...

, situated to the south-east of

Grindelwald Grindelwald is a village and Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the Interlaken-Oberhasli (administrative district), Interlaken-Oberhasli administrative district in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Bern (canton), Berne. In addition ...

. It starts below the

Agassizhorn The Agassizhorn is a mountain of the Bernese Alps in Switzerland. It lies just north-west of the Finsteraarhorn, the main summit of the range. The Agassizhorn is the tripoint between the valleys of the Lower Grindelwald Glacier, the Unteraar Gl ...

and the Strahlegghörner and is connected with the

Finsteraar Glacier The Unteraargletscher (), literally "Lower Aare-Glacier", is the larger of the two sources of the Aare river in the Bernese Alps. It emerges from the association of the Finsteraargletscher (near the Finsteraarhorn) and the Lauteraargletscher (n ...

via the Finsteraarjoch (). Grindelwaldgletscher

The Lower Grindelwald Glacier yet has a major tributary, the Ischmeer (

Swiss German Swiss German (Standard German: , gsw, Schwiizerdütsch, Schwyzerdütsch, Schwiizertüütsch, Schwizertitsch Mundart,Because of the many different dialects, and because there is no defined orthography for any of them, many different spelling ...

for ''Ice Sea'', formerly known as ''Grindelwald-Fiescher Glacier'', german: Grindelwald-Fieschergletscher), which is the glacier overlooked by the

Jungfrau Railway The Jungfrau Railway (german: Jungfraubahn, JB) is a mountain railway in the Bernese Alps, connecting Kleine Scheidegg in the Bernese Oberland to the Jungfraujoch, across the Valais border. The railway, which uses a and racks, runs from the st ...

Eismeer railway station Eismeer railway station ( German for ''Ice Sea'') is an underground railway station bored into the mountain Eiger on the Jungfrau Railway, which runs to the Jungfraujoch from Kleine Scheidegg. It lies at an altitude of 3,159 metres above sea le ...

. The Lower Grindelwald Glacier was about long and covered an area of in 1973. The glacier has significantly shrunk since, having a length of just in 2015, with most of the retreat () happening since 2007. In the middle of the 19th century it clearly reached into the valley of Grindelwald as far as ''Mettenberg'' at an altitude of , an eastern quarter of Grindelwald, near the conjunction of the Schwarze and Weisse LütschineNot to be mismatched with the Weisse Lütschine in the Valley of Lauterbrunnen. In 1900 it still reached as far as ''Rote Fluh'' () and filled the entire valley of its current end, the glacier lake, with a thickness of about up to an altitude of , just below the current hiking path around the Bänisegg. Around 2000 it still reached into the gorge between the Hörnli (Eiger) and

Mättenberg The Mettenberg (also spelled ''Mättenberg'') is a mountain of the Bernese Alps, overlooking Grindelwald in the Bernese Oberland. It lies north of the Schreckhorn The Schreckhorn (4,078 m) is a mountain in the Bernese Alps. It is the highes ...

. The Lower Grindelwald Glacier should not be confused with the

Upper Grindelwald Glacier The Upper Grindelwald Glacier (German: ''Oberer Grindelwaldgletscher'') is one of the two valley glaciers near Grindelwald on the northern side of the Bernese Alps, in the Canton of Berne (the other being the Lower Grindelwald Glacier). It had a le ...

, situated to its north-east. The Grindelwald-Fiescher Glacier should not be confused with the like-named

Fiescher Glacier The Fiescher Glacier (''Fieschergletscher'' in German) is a valley glacier on the south side of the Bernese Alps in the canton of Valais, Switzerland. in length, it is the second longest glacier in the Alps. The glacier covers an area of . The ...

, to the south of the

Fiescherhorn Grosses Fiescherhorn is a mountain peak of the Bernese Alps, located on the border between the cantons of Bern and ValaisValais, halfway between the Mönch and the Finsteraarhorn. At above sea level, its summit culminates over the whole Fiesc ...

Caspar Wolf Oberer und unterer Grindelwaldgletscher 1774

References

External links

Swiss glacier monitoring network
Glaciers of the canton of Bern Glaciers of the Alps Grindelwald GLowerGrindelwald {{Bern-glacier-stub

See also

References

External links