Year of Water 2012

Experience the fascination of water at the Great Aletsch Glacier in the Aletsch Arena.

The Great Aletsch glacier – A Titan

It is the Titan among all alpine glaciers, a huge ice mass: the Great Aletsch glacier builds the core of the UNESCO World Heritage Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch. John Tyndall wrote 1860: “The Aletsch glacier is the most impressive glacier of the Alps: we stood over it whilst the surrounding mountains generously fed the gigantic ice stream.” The Great Aletsch glacier is the largest and widest glacier of the Alps. It has a length of 22,6 km and an area of 81,7 km². It is bordered by impressive 4000 m high peaks such as the Jungfrau, the Mönch and the Gross Fiescherhorn constituting the northern boundary of its drainage basin: the firn basins Grosser Aletschfirn, Jungfraufirn, Ewigschneefäld and Grüneggfirn (from west to east), converge at the Konkordiaplatz. They build at this point the origin of the powerful and elegant medial moraines that characterize the Great Aletsch glacier. No wonder this fascinating world of glaciers largely impressed travelled tourists and inspired the strangest associations: in a flash of inspiration J. F. Hardy, a British citizen compared the core of the Great Aletsch glacier with the Place de la Concorde in Paris and the name Konkordia remained …