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Mountain · Chamonix, France

Mer de Glace

France's largest glacier, reached by rack railway, with the steps down signed by the year the ice reached them.

RhônePoRheinRheinRhôneRhôneLoireLoireLake GenevaChamonix, FranceMonte Rosa — 4,634 mAnnecy, FranceClermont-Ferrand, FranceLe Puy-en-Velay, FranceBellagio & Lake Como, ItalyMilan, ItalyTurin, ItalyLauterbrunnen, SwitzerlandSt. Moritz & the Engadin, SwitzerlandLugano, SwitzerlandZermatt, SwitzerlandChamonixMonte Rosa 4,634 mRhoneAnnecyMilanTurinLauterbrunnenZermatt
Mer de Glace is in Chamonix, and this is Chamonix — the atlas draws Europe in one projection whose finest unit is about four kilometres, so it maps the town rather than the street. The frame is about 590 km across and 210 km deep at this latitude. Coastline from Natural Earth, public domain. Relief from GMTED2010 (USGS) and ETOPO1 (NOAA), public domain. The full map →

Give it 3 hours · Open year-round · 45.897°N, 6.921°E

Accessibility

Not documented. EuropeDoor holds no step-free access, hearing loop or accessible toilet information for any place, and inventing it would be worse than the gap — the position in full.

Getting there

The TGV network makes Paris–Marseille three hours and Paris–Bordeaux two. All of France →

Up a level

Chamonix · The Alps & the East · France

We do not hold opening hours, prices or a website for this

Those are the three fields that go stale fastest and the three you are most damaged by being wrong about, so this site does not carry them at all rather than carrying an unverified version. Check the operator or the municipality on the day. The estimate of how long to give it, and the season, are editorial judgements and are usually stable.

What happens here

Experiences tied to this place, and how each one is tied to it — standing on it, starting from it, or looking at it.

Down to the Mer de Glace

The steps to the ice are signed with the year the glacier reached each level; the descent is a chronology as much as a walk.

Happens here

Other places in Chamonix

Aiguille du Midi

3,842 metres in twenty minutes by cable car, with Mont Blanc across the glacier.

Mountain

Journeys that stop here

The Alpine Grand Tour

Six valleys, four countries, one mountain range

17 days

The record

What this atlas holds about Mer de Glace, and nothing it does not.

Kind
Mountain
Give it
3 hours
Season
Open year-round
Where
45.897°N, 6.921°E
In
Chamonix