The Steinglacier
The Steinglacier and its western neighbor, the Steilimmiglacier are "drive-in glaciers": From the Sustenpass opens an excellent view up about her beautiful ice cascades. The Steinglacier (or Steiglacie, as he is called on some state maps) is a typical medium-sized valley glacier of approximately 4.3 km and an area of about 8 km². His starting-point is on the mountain ridge between the Gwächtenhorn the west and the Sustenhorn in the east. The glacier is currently at 1940 m above the sea just behind the Steinsee.
During the period of the Little Ice Age around the middle of the 19th Century, the Steinglacier was about 1 km longer than today and ran over twice the old infrastructure to the Sustenpass, it had to be built higher up on the hillside for mule trains and pack animals a makeshift way. The new pass road, built 1938-1945, holds himself at a respectful distance from the glacier. The retreat was formed in 1940 in the plane of the former glacier tongue of the Steinsee.
In contrast to the Valais glacier the moraines are here still relatively close to the glacier bed today. Looking around there are the surrounding peaks (Sustenhorn, Hinter Tierberg, Dammastock, Tieralplistock and Diechterhorn). These are 3400-3500 m high. This results in a very large catchment area, if one determines the 3000-m-isotherm as the boundary between catchment areas and the ablation zone. Overall, there were here since 1850, despite the larger catchment area and the greater thickness of the ice less advances. In return, the glaciers in the last 150 years and in recent decades not long ago declined to such an extent as was observed in the other glaciers. However, even here a decline is discernible.
With its medium length for an alpine glacier of about four kilometers the Steinglacier is particularly interesting to observe the reaction of its tongue on climate change. The glacier is big enough to offset short-term temperature fluctuations in individual years. On the other hand it is also small enough to respond to fluctuations in the range of decades clear. The initiatives taken from 1911 to 1923 and from 1970 to 1989 were responses to a slight cooling in the previous years. These two advances were only small episodes in general and a massive decline since the end of the Little Ice Age.
During the strong decline the tongue formed from the forties, the Steinlake that is dammed by a terminal moraine beautifully marked. After he had left nearly three hundred meters from the lake, the Steinglacier came in 1969 before again strong, and indeed in some years quite quickly - for example, from 1982 to 1983 by 40 meters. From 1987, he groped his way back down to the lake before, and later broke off even small icebergs.
To log this cache, please answer the following question:
1. Look from the direction of the Sustenpass to the glacier. Where can you see the moraines of past significant advances?
-> Left and in front?
-> Right and in front?
-> Left and right?
You are allowed to log directly after sending the answer. If the answer is too vague, I will contact you.
Have fun in the discovery of this absolutely wonderful natural spectacle.