The Blaueis ("blue ice") is the northernmost

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 over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such a ...

in the

Alps The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Sw ...

and lies within the municipality of Ramsau in the

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...

n part of the

Berchtesgaden Alps The Berchtesgaden Alps (german: Berchtesgadener Alpen) are a mountain range of the Northern Limestone Alps, named after the market town of Berchtesgaden located in the centre. The central part belongs to the Berchtesgadener Land district of sou ...

Geography

The glacier lies on the exposed north-facing slopes in the upper Blaueis

cirque A (; from the Latin word ') is an amphitheatre-like valley formed by glacial erosion. Alternative names for this landform are corrie (from Scottish Gaelic , meaning a pot or cauldron) and (; ). A cirque may also be a similarly shaped landf ...

, nestling between the rock faces of the Blaueisspitze (2480 m), Hochkalter (2607 m) and Kleinkalter (2513 m), which ring the glacier in a horseshoe shape. Because of its relatively low elevation, the Blaueis has been particularly affected by glacial retreat which is common amongst Alpine glaciers. Since the mid-1980s, rocks in the middle of the Blaueis have become increasingly free of snow and the upper part of the glacier is now more or less completely separated from the lower field of what is now dead ice. The thickness of the ice as determined by ground-penetrating radar was only up to 13 feet in 2007, and the average thickness of the ice was less than four metres; giving a volume of around 0.4 million m³.Archive of Bavarian Glaciers
This means that the remaining ice mass is smaller than the mass lost in the last decade of the 20th century. The base for ascents of the glacier is the Blaueis Hut at 1,680 m high in the Blaueis cirque below the glacier. The hut may be reached from Ramsau or Hintersee in just over three hours walking. Above the glacier, which in its upper section is up to 55° steep, is a climbing path to the Blaueis gap (2,400 m), from which there is an easy climb of

grade II In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

(

UIAA The International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation, commonly known by its French name Union Internationale des Associations d'Alpinisme (UIAA, lit. ''International Union of Alpine Clubs''), was founded in August 1932 in Chamonix, Franc ...

) to the Hochkalter summit. The best time of the year is usually the second half of June, when snow still facilitates the climb and snow bridges often allow a simple crossing of the gully (''Randkluft'') below the saddle. In late summer and autumn, the gully is wide and often difficult to cross. At that time of the year there were sometimes fatal falls in the past caused by black ice. A popular climbing tour is the so-called ''Blaueisumrahmung'' (Blaueis circuit). It runs without touching the glacier from the Blaueis Hut over the Schärtenspitze, Blaueisspitze, Hochkalter, Kleinkalter and Rotpalfen back to the start. The main difficulty is conquering the Blaueis north arête, which is at least a UIAA grade IV climb. File:Blaueisgletscher 280603.jpg, The Blaueis Glacier which had clearly retreated in 2003 File:Blaueis_3.jpg, The Blaueis Glacier in spring 2007 File:Blaueis_2.jpg, The Blaueis Glacier, Blaueis wind gap (''Blaueisscharte'') and peak of the Blaueisspitze. Behind: the Watzmann

References

External links

Web page for the Blaueis Hut

Archive of Bavarian glaciers
Glaciers of Bavaria Berchtesgaden Alps GBlaueis Glaciers of the Alps {{Germany-glacier-stub