Germany’s Zugspitze glacier gets sunshield

Workers will spend the next several days covering 6,000 square metres of one of the most northerly glaciers in the Alps with special tarpaulins to preserve its shrinking dimensions, the company said.

The Zugspitze, which looms above the quaint Bavarian town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, received the same loving treatment last year, an initiative that saved some 30,000 cubic metres of snow – the equivalent of a football field, one storey high.

Thanks to late-season snows in April, Bayerische Zugspitzbahn was able to delay this year’s tarpaulin installment by spreading extra snow across the ice sheet, said ski area manager Manfred Haas.

Based on laser scans, the resort estimates the glacier has lost 40 metres in thickness the last 40 years.