Glacier Blanc
The Glacier Blanc with the Barre des Ecrins
The Glacier Blanc is a glacier in the French Hautes -Alpes. Its name (" White Glacier " ) he owes to the fact that - unlike, say, the adjacent Glacier Noir (" Black Glacier " ) - its surface by the absence of moraine appears spotlessly clean.
Glaciers, which are largely free of moraine are in French, more generally referred to as the glacier blanc.
Geography
The origins of the Glacier Blanc on the north side of the south-westerly four-thousand of the Alps, the 4102 m high Barre des Ecrins. From southern Glacier Noir, he is by the Crête de l' Encoula ( alternate spelling: Crête de l' Encula ) Comb mentioned separately, the over runs from the Barre des Ecrins to Pointe du Serre Subeyran. The upper part of the glacier is called after this ridge sometimes as Glacier de l' Enc ( o) ula; in some older maps this name is used for the entire glacier.
With its ( in 2002), 5.9 km long tongue of Glacier Blanc is the longest glacier in the Ecrins Massif. However, his area of 5.34 km ² (2002) does not reach that of the Glacier de la Girose and the Glacier du Mont -de- Lans, which form a common system. The Glacier Blanc is a typical valley glacier, which is below the bar first arc in a northeasterly direction extends before his tongue bends in an ice cliff to the southeast. Its average slope is about 30%. However, it is in the flat central part much lower than in the northern flank of the Barre des Ecrins or the lower tongue area with the ice cliff.
The glacier is bounded on its left mountain slope, among others, from the peaks of the Roche Faurio ( 3730 m), Pic de Neige Cordier ( 3614 m ) and the Montagne des Agneaux ( 3664 m). The Crête de l' Encoula draws as south-facing boundary of the Barre des Ecrins on Barre Noir ( 3661 m), Pointe Mettrier ( 3664 m), Pointe de la Grande sagne ( 3660 m) to Pointe du Serre Subeyran ( 3472 m). Between the glacier basin bordering summits small tributary glaciers are embedded that feed the main stream.
In its middle part of the main stream ( without side glacier) of the Glacier Blanc is about 800 to 1000 meters wide. The largest ice depth is at the level of the Refuge des Ecrins up to 250 meters; it is thus declined by about 30 meters since 1985. The glacier flows at its central portion with a speed of about 40 ( mid-80s of the last century 50), in the region of the lower tongue of about 30 meters per year. The reaction period that passes through the bottom tongue responds by advance or retreat to significantly changed circumstances in the accumulation area is, the Glacier Blanc about 6 years. From its origin to 4000 m altitude up to the glacier on currently about 2400 m ( 2002: 2 315 m) of the Glacier Blanc overcomes a difference in altitude of around 1600 meters.
The firn line that separates the accumulation zone from the ablation zone, located at the Glacier Blanc in the north-facing slopes at about 2750 m, south-facing flanks of the approximately 2950 m. The mass balance of the glacier is not yet fully investigated.
The Glacier Blanc drained via the Torrent du Glacier Blanc, Gyr, the Gyronde, the Durance and finally the Rhone into the Mediterranean.
Development
From Pré de Madame Carle with the Refuge Cézanne, where the road ends in the village Ailefroide Vallouise at a large parking lot, leads an alpine, most trodden path that leads up to the Refuge du Glacier Blanc ( 2542 m), which lies within sight of the glacier tongue. About 100 meters below the hut happens the way the ancien Refuge Tuckett, a small Unterkunftsbau from the late 19th century. The now used as an exhibition object primitive hut was built right next to a large stone slab that served the Erschließern the area as a place to bivouac before. After the English mountaineer Francis Fox Tuckett the shelter was named with British humor Hotel Tuckett.
Two hours' walk perched above the Refuge des Ecrins at 3170 m altitude on a promising Pulpit Rock high above the Glacier Blanc. Much of the hut rise directly over the glacier and can only be addressed by fully -equipped mountaineers because of the risk of falling columns. The high-altitude base with 119 camps is often hopelessly overcrowded in high season.
From La Bérarde (1713 meters), the alpine center in the skin Vénéon, you reach the Glacier Blanc over the Val de Bonne Pierre Col des Ecrins final ( 3367 m). It is a day tour in difficulty PD. The western ascent to the Col is steep and challenging, although facilitate the fuse in the upper part of wire ropes. On the eastern side of Glacier Blanc goes right up to the narrow Einschartung.
Historical development
Like most Alpine glaciers melt back the tongue of the Glacier Blanc. In earlier times, most recently in 1866, he formed with its southern neighbor, the debris-covered Glacier Noir, a single glacier system whose tongues were united above the Pré de Madame Carle. During the Little Ice Age, the combined mass of ice reached its maximum extent in 1815 and ending approximately at the level of Cézannehütte (1874 m).
Today ( 2010), the tongue of Glacier Blanc at an altitude of about 2400 m. For the 20th century, the decline is estimated at about 1 km, which was accompanied by a loss of surface area of 2 km ². Alone between 1989 and 1999 lost the glaciers around 210 meters, 300 meters further followed in the years to 2006. Went ice thickness in the years 1981 to 2002 by an average of 13.5 yards back so coincided with a mass loss of an estimated 70 million m³ ice.