To touch a glacier: objective complete!

To touch, or not to touch, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the Alps to suffer The rocks & pebbles of outrageous landslides, Or to take arms against the ice of ages, And by opposing melt them. Via — Mer de Glace

While hiking of the Tour des Aiguilles Rouges in the French Alps, I could not help but stare across the Chamonix Valley. On the other side lay several glaciers twisted into the mountainsides. Most notable was the Mer de Glace, shaped like a svelte S,

Hence, when I finished my hike I hopped on a train from Le Buet to Chamonix-Mont-Blanc station. Upon stepping out into the horde of tourists, a new adventure began. Most tourists take the Train du Montenvers followed by a Gondola to enter Grotte de Glace, an unnatural cavity bored into the heart of the glacier.

I decided to attempt a more organic approach to touching the glacier. I would hike to it. The benefits of my alternative approach were that it was free of charge, free from other tourists, and free from reliance on others. My track was as follows:

First, I hiked past the restaurants of Montenvers, following a trail up the sidewall of the glacial valley. Most people on this section of the trail were carrying serious mountaineering gear. Based on the recommendation of a local, I decided to turn around and approach the glacier at its lowest point. But before heading back, I snapped this shot:

At Buvette des Mottets, I began down a supposed trail (according to my ViewRanger map) to reach the glacier valley. A sign noted "unmaintained trial, danger ahead". The trail soon disappeared besides for large posts every few hundred feet. The descent was steep, and for the final portion a considerable rock scramble.

It was abundantly clear how the terrain had been shaped by the glacier, which has been receding at an alarming pace. The closer I got to the glacier, the more unstable the footing became. I looked up to the other side of the valley:

I was reaching the tip of the glacier:

I wanted to touch. But when I looked closely, I saw gravel sliding down the glacier:

The glacier was melting in real-time. I didn't want to get crushed in a rockslide, but I needed to touch. So I did… briefly!

Mission accomplished. By the way, the GPS coordinates of that picture are 45°56'11.1"N 6°55'20.9"E (Google Photos seems to have recently started stripping geolocation data from downloads… infuriating).

Before heading up, I decided to really enjoy my time alone with the glacier, so I pulled out my Dell XPS 9370 with a GNU/Linux operating system. As heard on Twitter, "glacial data science by @dhimmel, the open sourceror":

Here's the view of the impending rock scramble from the return voyage:

I camped out one final night near town. I picked a good spot as I got to watch a nearby nighttime running race that was part of the Mont Blanc Marathon. The next morning I took the Ouibus to Geneva Airport. The END.

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