The Fee Glacier () is a long

glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

(2005) situated in the

Pennine Alps The Pennine Alps (, , , ), sometimes referred to as the Valais Alps (which are just the Northern Swiss part of the Pennine Alps), are a mountain range in the western part of the Alps. They are located in Italy (the Aosta Valley and Piedmont) an ...

in the canton of

Valais Valais ( , ; ), more formally, the Canton of Valais or Wallis, is one of the cantons of Switzerland, 26 cantons forming the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. It is composed of thirteen districts and its capital and largest city is Sion, Switzer ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

. In 1973, it had a length of and an area of . It lies east of the

Mischabel The Dom is a mountain of the Pennine Alps, located between Randa and Saas-Fee in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. With a height of , it is the seventh highest summit in the Alps, overall. Based on prominence, it can be regarded as the thir ...

range, between the summit of Dom on the north and

Allalinhorn The Allalinhorn () is a mountain in the Pennine Alps in Switzerland. It lies between Zermatt and Saas-Fee in the canton of Valais, and is part of the Mischabel range, which culminates at the Dom (4,545 m). It was first climbed by London barrist ...

on the south. The glacier is accessible via the

Mittelallalin The Mittelallalin () is a minor summit below the Allalinhorn situated above Saas Fee. This place is well known for the revolving restaurant which is the highest in the world and a glacier cave. Access Mittelallalin can be reached easily by cab ...

cable car and is used as a ski area.

Physical characteristics

Fee Glacier () descends on the north-east flank of the Mischabel range, splitting into Feegletscher Nord and Süd above the resort of

Saas-Fee Saas-Fee () is the main village in the Saastal, or the Saas Valley, and is a municipality in the district of Visp in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. The village is situated on a high mountain plateau at 1,800 meters (5,900 feet), surrounded ...

. Glacier Monitoring of Switzerland (GLAMOS) length surveys show that the glacier measured roughly 4.6 km in 2019 and has retreated by about 1,100 m since systematic observations began in 1883, equivalent to one quarter of its 19th-century extent. The monitoring network also records a strongly negative specific-mass trend since the late 1980s, with ice-thickness losses commonly exceeding 1 m w.e. a year during the extreme summers of 2022–24.

Geomorphology

During the

Little Ice Age The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region. It was not a true ice age of global extent. The term was introduced into scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939. Mat ...

the glacier over-rode a prehistoric rock-avalanche deposit known as the Guglen slide. Detailed sediment mapping of the Feegletscher Nord foreland shows a tongue of unsorted avalanche boulders partly re-worked into an arcuate end-

moraine A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris (regolith and Rock (geology), rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a gla ...

and

hummock In geology, a hummock is a small knoll or mound above ground.Bates, Robert L. and Julia A. Jackson, ed. (1984). "hummock." Dictionary of Geological Terms, 3rd Ed. New York: Anchor Books. p. 241. They are typically less than in height and ten ...

y debris zone as the advancing ice bulldozed coarse talus downslope. Clast-fabric analysis and grain-size data confirm a mosaic of paraglacial and subglacial processes: pulverised

bedrock In geology, bedrock is solid rock that lies under loose material ( regolith) within the crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet. Definition Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface material. An exposed portion of bed ...

and muddy, poorly-sorted sandy gravels sit side-by-side with subglacially sheared

till image:Geschiebemergel.JPG, Closeup of glacial till. Note that the larger grains (pebbles and gravel) in the till are completely surrounded by the matrix of finer material (silt and sand), and this characteristic, known as ''matrix support'', is d ...

s, demonstrating how a single glacier advance can redistribute millions of cubic metres of pre-existing collapse material across the valley floor.

Economy and tourism

Part of the Saas-Fee

lift Lift or LIFT may refer to: Physical devices * Elevator, or lift, a device used for raising and lowering people or goods ** Paternoster lift, a type of lift using a continuous chain of cars which do not stop ** Patient lift, or Hoyer lift, mobile ...

system rises to Mittelallalin (3,500 m), where 20 km of pistes on the upper Fee Glacier still permit summer glacier skiing. According to a 2024 sustainability study, Saas-Fee and Zermatt are now the only Swiss resorts able to operate commercial glacier skiing through July-August, and summer training by elite race teams accounts for up to half of Saas-Fee's warm-season cable-car income. Operators combat ablation by

snow grooming Snow grooming is the process of manipulating snow for recreational uses with a tractor, snowmobile, piste caterpillar, truck or snowcat towing specialized equipment. The process is used to maintain ski hills, cross-country ski trails and snow ...

and

geotextile Geotextiles are versatile permeable fabrics that, when used in conjunction with soil, can effectively perform multiple functions, including separation, filtration, reinforcement, protection, and drainage. Typically crafted from polypropylene or ...

covers, yet interviewees report that deteriorating surface conditions in 2022 forced several national squads to relocate to the southern hemisphere. The study concludes that continued retreat threatens both the economic viability of summer skiing and the valley's wider four-season

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the Commerce, commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. World Tourism Organization, UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as ...

model.

References

{{Reflist, refs= {{cite journal , last1=Cook , first1=Simon J. , last2=Porter , first2=Philip R. , last3=Bendall , first3=Charles A. , year=2013 , title=Geomorphological consequences of a glacier advance across a paraglacial rock avalanche deposit , journal=Geomorphology , volume=201 , pages=384–399 , doi=10.1016/j.geomorph.2013.01.022 {{cite report , title=The Swiss Glaciers 2017/18 & 2018/19 , publisher=Cryospheric Commission, Swiss Academy of Sciences , series=Glaciological Report No. 139/140 , year=2020 , doi=10.18752/glrep_139-140 , url=https://doi.glamos.ch/pubs/glrep/glrep_139-140.pdf {{cite journal , last1=Salim , first1=Elie , last2=Fournier , first2=Julien , last3=Gerber , first3=Ericka , last4=Fragnière , first4=Emmanuel , last5=Kebir , first5=Leïla , year=2024 , title=Summer glacier skiing amid climate change: what does production transformation mean for sustainability? , journal=EUNOMIA – Rozwój Zrównoważony – Sustainable Development , volume=2 , issue=108 , pages=29–46 , url=https://shs.hal.science/halshs-04789645

External links

Swiss glacier monitoring network
Glaciers of the Alps Glaciers of Valais

Physical characteristics

Geomorphology

Economy and tourism

See also

References

External links