Gorner Glacier

Glacier · canton of Valais · 2600 m

The second-largest glacier in the Alps, between the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa, above Zermatt.

From the basket

Behind Zermatt, beneath Monte Rosa, the Gorner Glacier unrolls its fourteen kilometres of ice. Only two Swiss glaciers are longer, and in the Alps only one is larger by area. From the balloon it appears as a broad grey and white ribbon, one to one and a half kilometres wide, winding between the peaks.

Several streams of ice make it up. The most important comes from the Italian border: it is born beneath the highest summits of Monte Rosa and slides north-west, beneath the face of the Liskamm. The Gorner itself rises on the other side of the Dufourspitze, on its north slope. The two meet at about two thousand four hundred metres, and the single tongue continues towards Zermatt.

Above the glacier, on its north bank, stands the Gornergrat ridge. From there you can see more than twenty summits above four thousand metres. The balloon, for its part, can follow the whole glacier, from the snows of Monte Rosa to the grey tongue melting above Zermatt.

Follow the stream of ice, then let the wind bring you back to the Matterhorn, which watches over the valley.

Did you know?

Every spring, where the two glaciers meet, meltwater forms a lake held back by the ice. Between June and September, it empties all at once, in a few days: the torrent overflows, and the whole glacier sometimes rises by half a metre.

Sources: Wikipedia, “Glacier du Gorner” (in French); Wikipedia, “Gornergletscher” (in German).

All around

• Dufourspitze, 4634 m, 6 km to the south-east
• Matterhorn, 4478 m, 12 km to the west
• Dom, 4545 m, 15 km to the north
• Weisshorn, 4506 m, 16 km to the north-west
• Dent Blanche, 4357 m, 17 km to the north-west