The Aletsch Glacier (Aletschgletscher) or Great Aletsch Glacier is the largest glacier in the Alps. In fact, it’s also the largest in Europe. It has a length of about 23 km and covers more than 120 square kilometres in the eastern Bernese Alps in the Swiss canton of Valais.

To do this hike, first you must get to Betten. With a train from Zurich it will take around 3 h. Driving will be around 3h 30 mins. From Betten, take the 10 minutes cable car to Bettmeralp. Then at Bettmeralp you have to walk through the village for about 15mins to reach the cable car that goes up to the Bettmerhorn. It sounds complicated but it’s actually. There is only 1 cable system at Betten so you wont get lost.

From here, we would walk back to Fiescheralp, where our hotel is situated. The estimated walking time is around 3 hour 10 min, but we think we would need to take more than 4 hours for that.    

It’s great that there weren’t many walkers on the path, so we didn’t need to watch out and give way to other people very often. It’s such a pleasant to walk by Aletsch Glacier. Incredibly immense, incredibly beautiful, Aletsch Glacier is the Alps’ mightiest ice flow. This glacier is easily accessible and is ideally situated for extensive hikers, winter sports and special nature excursions.       

All glaciers are subject to melting and freezing. They are formed when more snow falls than can thaw in summer. The snow is gradually compacted and eventually forms glacial ice. As the snow and ice thicken, it reaches a point where it begins to move due to combination of gravity and pressure of the overlying snow and ice.          

 While new ice is constantly being added at the top, at the bottom it wears away, in a process known as ablation. It is when the rate of ablation exceeds that of accumulation that a glacier starts to shrink.      Aletsch Glacier is not only an impressive landmarks, but also a useful indicator of the climate change. Every year the Swiss glacier monitoring network reports on how far specific glaciers have retreated or advanced. On such a huge glacier as the Aletsch, the tongue reacts very slowly.       

The sight of this awesome glacier is something we couldn’t perceive and feel in the geography lessons, because of its enormous, ancient and on the move.    

It’s not only the length of the glacier, but its thickness is equally impressive. Measurements carried out by the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) had shown that at its source at the Konkordiaplatz, it’s about 900 m thick. But as it descends it get gradually thinner, and by the end its depth is only about 150 m.

There are several vantage points offer a good view of Aletsch Glacier, such as the Bettmerhorn above Bettmeralp and Eggishorn. Also, along this hiking trail. 

We have repeatedly told them not to throw stones, but they would forget about it some times. Sigh, just got to remind them again their act may endanger the other hiker’s life who took the lower trail downs there.

Yes, this time I’ve got a better family picture with Aletsch Glacier as backdrop. The weather was so far so good….yet husband pushed us to walk faster, cause he think the rain would pour on us at any time.         

Luckily, it’s a relatively flat walk for most of the time, with not much climbing required at all. Should we walked the other way round, we would have walked ascending for most of the time instead. That’s why it’s important to study the trail before departure. For this, our trip manager had done a good job.          

We were supposed to walk straight, to the left. But somehow, we were not sure if we should go that way because of that sign board which we were not sure what’s its meaning. Knowing the rain would come anytime, we didn’t have much time for risk.   So, I took a photo of this sign board, then ran backward to catch up the group of hikers whom we had bumped into just now. I show the sign board to them, and they told me this is a warning sign, that we shouldn’t go to that direction because the path ahead had become dangerous somehow. I sighed in relieved. Luckily we took some time to check it out than ignoring it.       

Finally, husband said we would make a turn from here. Before saying good bye to Aletsch Glacier, we stopped here for a while to admire her beauty for the last time.  Farewell, Aletsch….