Hiking Above Germany’s Melting Glaciers During Europe’s Record-Breaking Summer

Soaring summer temps are melting Europe’s glaciers at exceeding rates. Wendy’s been living in Europe recently and has experienced first hand how climate change is transforming the way we adventure.

Germany’s Disappearing Glaciers

I gripped the metal cable and gazed across the Bavarian Alps as we neared the summit of the Zugspitze. To the southwest I could see the shrunken Northern Schneeferner. It barely looked like a glacier anymore. To me, it resembled a large patch of snow left over from winter, sheltered by the rocky ridgeline that meandered along the German-Austrian border.

I didn’t even notice a second glacier, the Southern Schneeferner, slightly further along. It was only a couple of weeks later, on 26 September 2022, when the Southern Schneeferner was, perhaps unsurprisingly, officially stripped of its glacier title, that I realised there could have been anything to see.

I went back over my photos from the day, trying to figure out if a tiny patch of white in the corner of one picture was the remnants of this once notable landmark.

With the ice now only around two metres thick, it can no longer ‘flow’ and is expected to melt away entirely within a couple of years. Yet just a few decades ago, the Northern and Southern parts of the Schneeferner were connected, covering the now bare rock and forming Germany’s highest glacier.

My partner Peter and I had been preoccupied with a different glacier that day, the Höllentalferner. Our original plan had been to climb Germany’s highest peak via the Höllental Route, which crosses the glacier. We had done this line, rightfully regarded as the star pick of the routes to the summit, just three years ago.

The Höllental Route

Germany has made the most of the Zugspitze with at least three different approaches, including a straightforward, albeit relentlessly uphill, hike.

The Höllental Route, on the other hand, ascends around 2,200 vertical metres through an ever-changing variety of landscapes. It begins with a meander through the forest along a river, then angles upwards through a canyon interwoven with old mining tunnels. It reaches a lower section of ‘via ferrata’, a sort of protected rock scrambling, common in Europe, involving steel cables on steep or exposed sections of rock.

One wears a harness and clips into the cables for protection in the unlikely event of a fall. The route climbs up, along a barren moonscape of scree, to the sloping Höllentalferner, then across the glacier to more via ferrata for the final few hundred metres of rock scrambling to the summit.

Three Years Earlier

In July 2019, the route had been a wild adventure. Thick clouds blew in as Peter and I crossed the glacier, turning a bluebird morning into a long slog through frigid fog.

Visibility contracted and it started to sleet. We stepped across the narrow gap between ice and rock to find the cables for our climb. Although the ferrata line wasn’t especially difficult, it felt like it went forever, with the steel getting colder for every inch of altitude we gained.

My gloves were too bulky to wear while grappling with carabiners and my hands were soon red and stinging from the sub-zero temperatures. I rubbed them together and exhaled hot air onto my fingers, trying to stop them becoming numb and useless.

Enveloped in cloud, we couldn’t see how much further the summit lay, nor how far we had come. We just kept moving, assuring each other at intervals that, ‘It can’t be much further now’. Periodically, we also reassured one another we were still having fun. ‘It’s so atmospheric like this!’ we’d declare in doubtful tones.

Peter insisted we follow the final short section of narrow ridgeline to the very summit – 2,962m – so we could take a triumphant video for our friends.

Only after that were we allowed to enter the Münchner Haus for a celebratory drink. Yes, in Germany the highest mountain has a beer hall, along with viewing platforms, a restaurant, and a cable car back down. The video shows me forcing a smile as I shiver against a dense white backdrop.

A Summer of Hikes and Heatwaves

Over the three years between our 2019 journey and 2022, the Höllental Route had changed. Specifically – like glaciers across the world – the Höllentalferner was melting. Peter and I had been in Europe all summer, and were acutely aware of the changing conditions, and dangers, the summer heat wave had brought.

Hiking in the Dolomites, we’d admired the Marmolada Glacier from a distance just weeks before it collapsed, killing 11 hikers. In Switzerland, Peter had planned to climb the Matterhorn, but melting permafrost had sharply increased the risk of rockfall.

Our ‘easy’ mountaineering traverse in the Monta Rosa area had become a six-day battle through relentless crevasses, sections of steep ice, and other new obstacles. On the 18th of August, a Washington Post article reported that the most severe melting of Europe’s glaciers on record had occurred this summer.

Online descriptions of the Höllental Route described the glacier as unusually heavily crevassed and steep. There was danger of rockfall, the gap to cross from the glacier to the rock was wider, and as the height of the ice diminished, scree and rock fell onto the surface.

When the surface of glaciers gets darker, they absorb more heat and melt faster. One particularly uncomfortable route description warned to avoid the dark blue sections, where a ‘waterfall’ flowing beneath the ice was close to the surface.

Taking a Different Route

Technically, the route was still possible, but the glacier crossing now sounded less like a walk with crampons, and more like a serious, potentially treacherous, mountaineering journey.

We decided to give the Höllental Route a miss this time, instead, reaching the summit along the Stopselzieher Route, a trail which involved both hiking and easy via ferrata – no glaciers.

It felt like a different mountain. Starting further to the west, close to the border, the path crossed into Austrian forest, and then back into Germany near the summit.

After the forest, the track had sections of via ferrata interspersed with narrow mountain paths, before a long traverse across a sea of scree. Then it was back onto limestone to scramble, protected (usually) by the cables to the summit.

It was a scorching summer day, nothing like the sleet and fog of 2019. I wore a thin shirt and kept my sun hat on under my helmet to help protect against the glare. When we reached the Weiner-Neustadter Hut at 2205m, we could see straight up to the summit.

The little ridge to the true summit was packed with day-trippers. I had to queue for my turn to shuffle the last few metres and stand on the peak. From the summit I could see down to the Höllentalferner. It looked shrivelled and dirty, gashed with crevasses, nothing like the sweeping sheet of majestic ice I’d once crossed.

Admittedly, it was later in the season this time, and from my position at the summit I could only see the lower section, so it’s possible my glimpse from afar may not have shown the dramatic level of change I thought it did. Regardless, it’s likely the Höllentalferner, like the Southern Schneeferner, will disappear in my lifetime.

Nestled in the rock and fed by avalanches, it might outlast Germany’s other glaciers but is ill-equipped to survive the warming climate for long.

What adventures are we losing to climate change?

I’ve read about glaciers disappearing, of course, and know the facts about the speed at which they’re melting. I wouldn’t say gazing down at what we’re set to lose made it seem ‘more real’, but there was nothing victorious about standing on that summit the second time round.

Instead, I was distracted by the nebulous feeling of loss that came with seeing just how easily the glacier below – and any chance to repeat the wild adventure of the Höllental Route – could slip away.

This feels like the kind of article that should end with a rousing call to action to save the glaciers, but it’s hard to reconcile that with the long-haul flight I took from Australia to get there.

I don’t think we can ignore the fact that all our small, individual actions add up. But, for what it’s worth, my position is simply that it’s okay to live in this world alongside all its beauty and wonder – to gaze at glaciers and swim over coral reefs while we still can – without keeping a guilt-wracked log of every item we buy, or trip we take.

Tread lightly on the world when you can, and don’t take it lightly when you can’t.