Mer de Glace

Mer de Glace from the station Mont Envers

The Mer de Glace to German Arctic Ocean is the largest glacier in France and the Mont- Blanc massif, and the fourth largest glacier in the Alps. The Mer de Glace (or the system of the corresponding single glacier) is about 12 km long and varies in width 700-1950 m. The ice has a maximum thickness of 420 m. The flow rate of this glacier is on average 90 m per year, which is a lot for a glacier in the Alps. Characteristic of the Mer de Glace are his nose cones that run transverse to the flow direction of the glacier as alternating light and dark bands such as " annual rings ".

As Mer de Glace in the strict sense only the flat glacier tongue is called, the one considered by the cog railway station Mont Envers from. From this point of the glacier appeared earlier than he gave up until almost to the level of today's railway station, like a flat, but churning Arctic Ocean. The name comes from the two British traveler Richard Pococke and William Windham, who visited in 1741 Mont Envers.

The Mer de Glace is fed from the two major tributaries Glacier de Leschaux and Glacier du Tacul, which in turn are fed from the Glacier du Géant and the glaciers of the Vallée Blanche. All together form the Mer de Glace in a broader sense.

Previously flowed the glaciers at the end of a steep step down into the valley of Chamonix, down right to the scattered hamlet of Les Bois. This glacier was called Glacier des Bois and was one of the showpieces of the old Chamonix. At the height of Mont Envers the glacier was about 130 m thicker than today. The crossing to his right shore was unproblematic. They even drove over flocks of sheep.

The springs from the Mer de Glace river called Arveyron and is a tributary of the valley of Chamonix by withdrawing Arve. As the glacier tongue was still in the valley of Chamonix, the Arveyron sprang an impressive and easily accessible for tourists glacier. This was a popular subject for painters and later photographers, see for example Joseph Mallord William Turner, The source of Arvéron in the Chamonix Valley, 1816., The waters of the Arve flow over the Rhone into the Mediterranean.

1779 Goethe entered the Mer de Glace on Mont Envers and noted: " What a devotion to this spectacle of ice! "

Carl Gustav Carus outlined in 1821 the valley of the Mer de Glace and put the resulting therefrom painting The Wreck of Chamonix in 1824 in Dresden. Caspar David Friedrich alienated the subject in his painting The High Mountains ( also 1824), by depicting the crossed by the Mer de Glace valley with views of the Grandes Jorasses without the glacier, so an empty, gaping valley without ice.

The Mer de Glace is the mountaineers as access to the huts of Charpoua, Talefre, Leschaux, Requin and Envers les Aiguilles, that serves almost the entire Mont Blanc massif. In the winter and spring of a popular, marked but ungroomed ski, called the Vallee Blanche descent from the Aiguille du Midi ( cable car from Chamonix ) on the Mer de Glace leads down to Chamonix.

The Mer de Glace pulls back over 150 years and is now more than two kilometers shorter and ( in Mont Envers ) 130 m thinner. From Mont Envers is now a cable car down to the glacier. Its bottom station is now no longer directly located by the retreat of the ice on the glacier. There is a way for around 300 steps down to the glacier. As the glaciers in the area Mont Envers loses annually between four and six meters in height, the staircase structure must be constantly adjusted.