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or race cars such as the Porsches, Ferraris
and Aston Martins I saw during my visit.
I recently learned the hotel has now a new
owner, and there will be an attempt to give
new breath to this antique gem, full of his-
tory, legends and mysteries. The Hotel in
Gletch is also closed, but there will be an at-
tempt to re-open it in summer 2023, which
I hope is successful. Currently, visitors or
researchers come to this almost abandoned
place to look at the Glacier. Those few in the
know will also visit the ice cave, which is not
natural but very carefully carved inside the
glacier.

The Furka pass is closed in winter and
opens only from late May to mid-Novem-
ber, weather allowing. In the spring before
it opens, a walkable ice grotto is re-drilled
into the Rhône Glacier. This has been done
every year since around 1870, and it takes
about 4 weeks. Initially it was cut to the left
side of the glacier, but now it is on the right,
and for four generations it has been cut by
the family Carlen who own the land.

However, there are problems with this. The
glacier is receding, so the cave must be cut
deeper into the remaining part. It is usual-
ly 100 metres long, but during the season it
can lose 20-30 metres of length, so the gor-
geous bright turquoise ice becomes more
dramatic, but also more dangerous. There is
also a risk of the ice chamber melting from
the top, so extra precautions and construc-
tions must be made inside. To diminish the
loss of ice and to protect this part of the
glacier, the family were pioneers in using a
survival blanket - this is exactly how I saw
this glacier at the beginning of the season.
There have been articles all over the press
about how the “Swiss protect their glacier
with blankets”, but this is for the first time
I saw it. Covering the glacier with a thick
fleece blanket is innovative, and aimed at
protecting the glacier from quick melting.
The inventor is convinced that it helps, say-
ing that without the blanket it could indeed
lose up to 20-30 metres or more during the
hot season, but while covered it retains up
to 70 per cent. The fleece blanket is an ex-
pensive innovation and very difficult to fix
it on the glacier, but it seems to work and is
not too bad aesthetically. It does look some-
what weird, but that can be lived with if it

50 W W W . D I VA I N T E R N A T I O N A L . C H