The Gorner-Glacier

Today I went on one of my most mystical runs ins Zermatt. From Zermatt up to Furi and then up to the “Gornerbach valley” – this is how I call the valley up the Gornerbach to the end of the Gorner-Glacier.

Guess what? I did not find the Gorner-Glacier anymore!

The Gorner-Glacier is one of the largest glaciers in the Alps. It is today approximately 12 KM long (…a nice training distance…) and 1 – 1.5 KM wide. The glacier is more like a valley on the west side of the Monte Rosa massif. Not surprisingly and as most (if not all) glaciers, the Gorner-Glacier has lost a substantial part of its size.

And…continues to steadily loose its size.

The Gorner-Glacier is one of the best examples of “retreating glaciers”: it has lost over 2.5 KM since 1859. It is now losing approximately 30 meters per year. Increasing.

Today I did not see the Gorner-Glacier!

Last time I did this run – in 2018 - I still saw the last ice masses of the Gorner-Glacier. They are gone today. Punkt. Nothing to be added any more.

Reading some of the research published on glaciers I took away a very shocking conclusion.

Even if we would reduce CO2 emissions to ZERO TODAY, we could not stop the melting of the glaciers in the Alps anymore.

Most of them – if not all of them – have received the irrevocable death penalty. From us humans.

I hope researchers are wrong. I also hope that we all ultimately wake-up. Fast and irrevocably