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The Trift Glacier () is a long 
Swiss glacier monitoring network
Glaciers of the Alps Glaciers of the canton of Bern GTrift
The Trift 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) in the Uri Alps near Gadmen
Gadmen is a small village and a former municipality in the Interlaken-Oberhasli administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.
On 1 January 2014, the former municipality of Gadmen merged into the municipality of Innertkirchen.
, in the extreme east of the canton of Bern
The canton of Bern, or Berne (; ; ; ), is one of the Canton of Switzerland, 26 cantons forming the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. Its capital city, Bern, is also the ''de facto'' capital of Switzerland. The bear is the heraldic symbol of the c ...
in 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 ...
.
Morphology
In 1973 glacier was 5.75 km long, 3 km wide at the top and around 500 m wide at it tongue. Overall it covered an area of including glacier sides. Since the end of theLittle 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 Trift Glacier is shrinking. The valley in which lake '' Triftsee'' is today used to be filled by a large mass of ice well into the 20th century. In the 1990s smaller meltwater pools began to form at the glacier tongue and gradually increased in size. The hot summer of 2003 was particularly hard on the glacier. The lake quickly grew larger and the glacier tongue literally sank into the meltwater lake or dissolved into it.Lorenz King: ''Studien zur postglazialen Gletscher- und Vegetationsgeschichte des Sustenpassgebietes.'' –In: ''Basler Beiträge zur Geographie.'' volume 18. 125 pages, 3 pollen diagramms as annex, 1974. This led to a shrinkage of the glacier of more than 136 m within just one year. From 1861 to 2021, the glacier shrunk a total of 3941 meters.
Tourist attractions
At an altitude of 2520 meters abovesea level
Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an mean, average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal Body of water, bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical ...
is the ''Trifthutte'', a mountain hut
A mountain hut is a building located at high elevation, in mountainous terrain, generally accessible only by foot, intended to provide food and shelter to mountaineering, mountaineers, climbing, climbers and Hiking, hikers. Mountain huts are us ...
of the ''Schweizer Alpen-Club (SAC)'' that was only accessible via the glacier tongue. Due to the melting of the glacier, in 2004 people were forced to build a bridge, the Trift Bridge to reach this hut.
See also
*List of glaciers in Switzerland
This is a non-exhaustive list of the major glaciers in Switzerland. It contains their surface area, their lengths since the start of measurement and the most current year, their height and their outflow. Most of them are retreating and many wil ...
*Swiss Alps
The Alps, Alpine region of Switzerland, conventionally referred to as the Swiss Alps, represents a major natural feature of the country and is, along with the Swiss Plateau and the Swiss portion of the Jura Mountains, one of its three main Physica ...
References
{{ReflistExternal links
Swiss glacier monitoring network
Glaciers of the Alps Glaciers of the canton of Bern GTrift