Zermatt's Glaciers and Climate Change
Sunnegga and Blauherd
A long tunnel in the mountain takes you from the Sunnegga valley station in Zermatt to the inclined funicular lift and a 4.5 minute ride in another tunnel up to the Sunnegga station, restaurant, and sunny terrace shown above. You can relax with wide views of many peaks and valleys surrounding the Matterhorn. From here you have a good perspective on the empty valleys of the Furgg and Zmutt glaciers that were filled with ice 150 years ago.
From Sunnegga take the gondola to the Blauherd lift station shown to the left and its mountain restaurant, Blue Lounge.
Five Lakes Trail
The photographs above show vistas that can be seen from either lift station and also the beginning of the Five Lakes Trail. This trail presents a remarkable view of an immense rock glacier that consisted of rocks and ice filling the cavities between the rocks in the past. At one time, the ice and rock mass flowed downhill and formed the rounded lobes and tongues shown in the photographs. It is unclear if the rock glacier is active today. The hiking trails and Grunsee mountain restaurant shown in the lower part of the right photograph give a sense of the size of this rock glacier. The photograph to the left shows an enlargement of the tongue above Grunsee, one of the five lakes along the trail.
The Five Lakes Trail starts at the Blauherd station and ends at the Sunnegga station. Along the way you will see Stellisee (shown below) and Moosjisee shown above in the distance. The trail will also cross the multiple lateral moraines of the Findel Glacier. The hikers in the top photograph are following the moraine ridge. The second photograph on the left shows three of the multiple moraine ridges including the large rock moraine to the right of the hiker. The truck on the road in the lower right photograph shows the immense size of some of the rocks that the glacier carried and dropped when it melted.
Stellisee is the first of the lakes along the Five Lakes Trail and is one of Zermatt's most famous lakes.
This view also shows the empty valley of the Zmutt Glacier in the background.
