One of the most experienced Italian mountain guides has warned of the serious changes on Mont Blanc. He does not recognize the mountain again, said 76-year-old Pietro Giglio in an interview with the Roman daily La Repubblica. The 4810 meter high Mont Blanc (Monte Bianco) rises on the border between France and Italy.
"Until recently the way to the summit on the Italian side was not much different from when I was young, now the climb is very steep, rocks are everywhere that the ice has exposed, and further down the cracks are opening at the beginning of the season "said Giglio, who had climbed the highest mountain in the Alps for the first time in 1960. Global warming has made historic climbing routes dangerous.
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Melting Mont Blanc: "Unrecognizable"After an unusually fast melt in recent weeks, the Planpincieux glacier on the Italian side of the Mont Blanc massif threatens to collapse. Italian media reported Wednesday slumps accompanied by a thunder. At the glacier a radar should now be installed for monitoring. The movement of the ice masses should be observed with photos.
Roads in Valle d'Aosta closed
The mayor of Courmayeur in Valle d'Aosta imposed a night-time ban on an access road on Planpincieux Glacier and restricted access to the danger area, as spokesman Moreno Vignolini said on Wednesday. It must be expected that down to 250,000 tons of glacier mass.
However, there are no inhabited dwellings in the area, said Vignolini. He dismissed media reports that might have affected Courmayeur himself as "apocalyptic". The popular tourist area was partially closed. For the time being, visitors are no longer allowed to be directly below the glacier.
The Planpincieux glacier is "atypical" because it is also melted away by the water trickling under it, said Jean-Pierre Fosson, Secretary General of the Fondazione Montagna Sicura. Overall, however, the glacier melt in the 180 glaciers in the region is an overarching problem. "Two square kilometers of ice vanish every year," Fosson said. "With the increasingly hot summer and autumn periods it gets worse."
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) presented an alarming special report on the oceans and the global snow and ice surfaces on Wednesday. In it, the international authors also warned against a drastic meltdown of glaciers, which play an important role as a reservoir.