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The State of Ice Caves for the 2024/25 Winter

As we are coming into September, it is still a bit too early to talk specifically about which ice caves will be accessible – and worth visiting – next winter. The glacier will continue to change in significant ways over the next weeks and may open up new opportunities or remove others in the progress.

In previous years we have occasionally been lucky enough to have ice caves that were accessible as early as mid September, but this year the situation is not quite as clear and I am currently not very hopeful before November.

There are definitely many spectacular features on the glacier that are worth exploring in both summer and winter, but when making your tour bookings please keep in mind that accessing ice caves is only possible under certain circumstances and we may need to adjust our plans and/or tour locations depending on the conditions.

After the recent tragic accident I am also expecting the National Park to enact new regulations on tours to ice caves and onto the glacier in general, and while I do not expect any dramatic changes to the type of tours that I offer it is certainly an aspect to keep in mind. Since all operating permits are scheduled to expire by the end of September, the new ones should be completed within the next few weeks which will hopefully clarify this situation.

Tranquility

Right place, right time. I hadn’t been in this particular area of the glacier for about a month, so I knew this structure was likely to be still around but neither its condition nor at which time we would arrive there. It all lined up, the sun was in the perfect spot and just enough meltwater on the ice to make a perfect mirror. What a place to discover!

(from yesterday’s full-day ice cave tour — shot handheld with Sony A7C + Sigma 20/1.4)

No more open slots for ice cave tours

I have no more open dates for any ice cave tours this season. My calendar is completely full until late March, with waiting lists for some dates.

Due to the warming temperatures and expected deterioration of the ice caves I will not accept additional bookings for the final week of March or into April.

This may change again as we get closer and the development of the cave becomes clear, so dates may open up again but I am not very hopeful given the very warm temperatures we are seeing at the moment.

My spring / summer tours will become available in the next weeks, too.

Bookings

Unfortunately the bookings system seems to currently have a bit of a glitch and shows days in the calendar as available even though they are in fact fully booked — so when one then goes ahead and selects that day it gets confused and fails to present any open departure times.

I apologize for the inconvenience, and am working on getting that fixed but haven’t found a workable solution so far.

The next guaranteed available date as of right now (Feb 17th) is March 23rd.