Photo page

1910: The glacier tongue has receded since the Little Ice Age maximum, as is shown by the tall moraine on the lower right. However, the glacier still descends over the steep rocks in the lower third of the photo, and reaches the upper part of Alpe Palü (photo Alpine Museum Bern).

1923: Compared with 1910 the tongue has become considerably thicker. Despite not being much longer, it is clearly convex, typical of a glacier which is advancing. Nevertheless, soon afterwards strong recession began (photo Alpine Museum Bern).

1972: After a phase of strong glacier recession the entire lower rock wall has become ice-free. The tongue now terminates in a corrie above 2300 m.a.s.l. A moderate re-advance follows until 1986, but see what has happened in the next image! (photo Joachim Wolff).

2007: After receding even more, the glacier no longer descends even over the upper rock wall. It has lost almost exactly 1000 metres of its total length since 1910 (photo Jürg Alean).

View from within the corrie: Behind the lake a small regenerated glacier remains. From its cliff calving takes place occasionally. Icebergs have stranded near the lake's outflow, near the photographer (photo Marco Zanoli, 2005).

Enlarged section of previous image. In the left part of the cliff a nice arch structure can be sen. The water from the falls disappears behind the remnant glacier on the right, reaching the lake through a subglacial channel (photo Marco Zanoli, 2005).

Length variations of Vadret da Palü from 1895 till 2007; data from Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network. Vertical scale: cumulative length change since 1895. Arrows indicate snout positions in 1910, 1921, 1972 und 2007, corresponding to the photos.

Stereo photo (anaglyph, requires red-blue glasses), July 2007. The stereoscopic image reveals the depth of the corrie in the centre of the image. A tarn is nowadays located inside it, but is not visible in the photo.