Historical records trace a retreat spanning more than a century
New photographs of Mount Triglav taken on either side of a snowfall this month show that Slovenia’s highest peak no longer carries its glacier. A photograph dated 2 October shows the last piece of the Triglav glacier. A second photograph, dated 19 October 2026, shows the mountainside after the final ice had melted.
The Guardian reported that extreme heat accelerated the glacier’s disappearance and characterized the final patch as the latest Alpine loss during a European summer it described as scorching.
The Guardian noted that Slovenia is home to the southeastern tip of the Alps and that the Triglav glacier suffered most of its decline in the last century. Historical photographs and documents suggest the glacier covered about 40 hectares in the mid-1800s. By 1946, when scientists conducted the first formal measurements, its area had shrunk to just 14 hectares.
Between 1983 and 2003, the glacier lost 93% of its surface area and shrank to cover less than a hectare of overheated rock, according to The Guardian. Despite that contraction, the ice continued to cling to the mountain for another two decades, surprising researchers who feared its imminent demise.
Over the last five years, which include Europe’s three hottest years on record, the remaining ice melted into a handful of isolated pockets. By the end of the summer, the final remnant of the main body measured just a few metres.
Matija Zorn, director of the Anton Melik Geographical Institute, said Mount Triglav “holds a central place in Slovenian national identity” and that the glacier’s demise represents the loss of an important data source and indicator of climate change.
Zorn first measured the glacier in 2001 and said the pace of change remained surprising even during the decades when it defied expectations. The spot where he had to put on crampons to prevent slipping jumped back year after year as the glacier receded. “Every year I knew that the ice was going to be less and less,” he said. “But I was shocked every year [by] how much less ice was up there.”
He also recalled taking a geochemical ice core in 2002. “The melting is incredible,” he said. “In 2002 … we took a core of ice out for some geochemical analysis and it was like 5 metres [deep]. The next year, I was standing on the same spot … not on ice, but on rock.”
Mount Triglav remains Slovenia’s highest peak, appears on Slovenia’s flag and is a cultural touchstone in a country of skiers and climbers. Every person in Slovenia is expected to climb it at least once, The Guardian reported. Although the glacier has vanished, scientists have found ice in the caves beneath Triglav as its retreat exposed new shafts.
A second glacier on Skuta mountain has also shrunk and thinned. Its remaining patch is better shaded than the ice that had covered Triglav, and scientists expect it to hold out for a few more years.
The Guardian described a broader retreat across the Alps, where fierce heatwaves made hotter by carbon pollution reduced large glaciers to what scientists have called “moonlike” rock deserts. It also reported that glaciers in the French Alps are melting fast because of climate change. Last month, Swiss glaciologists found that nearly a fifth of the country’s ice had disappeared in the last five years, while glacier volume fell 5.5% in 2026.
Western Europe also endured its hottest summer on record in 2026, the report said. The heat caused at least 50,000 estimated heat deaths and secondary effects that included failed harvests and power plants being forced to shut down, while scientists continued to assess damage to ecosystems.
Glaciologist and mountain guide Miha Pavšek has a photograph of his parents on Triglav from 1957. He said “nature is changing in front of our eyes” but people were not yet taking the change seriously. “With the melting of the glacier, a part of me is also going away,” Pavšek said. “There are some things that humans thought were eternal. Glaciers are obviously not.”