Germany’s Highest Ski Area Offers “Farewell Tour" of Glacier

Germany’s highest ski area and home to its largest glacier, Zugspitze, is offering a self-guided “Farewell Tour” of its glacier to summer visitors.

The Zugspitze, also the highest mountain in Germany at 2,962 m (9,718 ft) above sea level, near Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Bavaria, was formerly home to three glaciers, the largest in Germany, but one of these, the Southern Schneeferner lost its glacier status in 2022 due to melting. Having been measured at nearly 40 hectares in area in 1979, it had melted to just 1.7 hectares by 2018. The Northern Schneeferner with an area of 30.7 hectares and Höllentalferner with an area of 24.7 hectares are still classed as glaciers for now, but their days appear numbered.

The Glacier Trail on the Nördlicher Schneeferner glacier has been completely revised this year in partnership with the Environmental Research Station Schneefernerhaus.  Six information panels along the route inform visitors about the glaciers, the impact of global warming, the work of Environmental Research Station Schneefernerhaus and geology at Zugspitze.

The loop trail is located 15 minutes’ walk from Restaurant Sonnalpin and can be walked in either direction. It takes about 45 minutes to complete and is open year round, but the information panels are only set up during the summer season.

The first lifts up the Zugspitze opened in 1926 and it has offered summer skiing in the past.  Sheets have been used to try to protect the glaciers from summer melting for three decades. Thanks to its altitude it usually has the greatest snow depth in Germany through the winter.  

Elsewhere in Europe recent years have seen symbolic funeral services for glaciers declared ‘dead’ and grave stones erected where glaciers once stood.