Mountain Wilderness International

21/08/2026

We believe that anyone who spends time in the mountains – whether for mountaineering, climbing, hiking or trail running - should do so in an ethical and environmentally sustainable way.

Trail running is one of the fastest growing sports in recent years, leading to significant environmental impacts, starting with its carbon footprint, soil degradation and erosion, wildlife disturbance, waste generation, as well as social ones, like disruption of communities, extra traffic, noise, pollution, economic imbalances, just to mention a few.

CIPRA International interviewed our newly elected vice president Laura Moro who, besides being a trail runner, has a background in science and research.

You can listen to the podcast directly via the link in the first comment.

Whether around Mont Blanc, the Zugspitze or the Grossglockner, or through the Dolomites: trail running events are booming across the Alps. At this year’s UTMB alone, around 10,000 runners are expected to take part in various races and categories. However, the sport’s growing popularity also brin...

19/08/2026

The Adamello Glacier, the largest in the Italian Alps, suffered an exceptionally harsh 2025–2026 season: very little winter snow left the ice exposed early, and summer heatwaves pushed the freezing level above 4,900 m, causing continuous melt even at night.

A comparison of Copernicus Sentinel‑2 images from 2016 and 2026 reveals a dramatic transformation: the first picture shows a broad, bright, snow-covered glacier, the second displays a darker, debris‑streaked, fully exposed ice surface.

Over these ten years, the Mandrone tongue, the glacier’s main outlet, retreated by about 550 m, according to the Italian Glaciological Foundation.

The Adamello Glacier is the largest in the Italian Alps, centred on the plateau of Pian di Neve between Lombardy and Trentino. The 2025–-2026 winter brought little snow over to the massif, exposing the glacier surface to solar radiation earlier than usual.

05/08/2026

Unlike Patagonia's imposing white walls, San Juan's glaciers are icy formations covered by sediment, rocks or debris, and almost blend into the mountain itself.

Mineral extraction projects looking for copper, lithium and more have proliferated across the Argentine Andes.

These minerals are key to the energy transition, but in San Juan water, "a resource that doesn't exist", is being given to transnational mining organisations rather than saving it for vital uses.

The water used and glaciers destroyed in the process worsen the effects of climate change for many local communities.

San Juan Province is facing a persistent water shortage due to climate change, while mining advances across the Andes and its thousands of glaciers.

24/07/2026

Puncak Jaya, 4,884 m asl, is the highest peak in Indonesia and Oceania. Indigenous peoples living nearby, including the Moni, call the glaciers atop Puncak Jaya the “eternity glaciers.”

Yet satellite data collected from 1980 to 2024 suggest that the glacier area atop the mountain declined by 97% in that 44-year period. Four of the mountain’s six glaciers disappeared completely.

The equatorial glaciers atop Puncak Jaya, Oceania’s tallest peak, have shrunk by about 95% since 2002, according to a new photogrammetry mapping effort.

18/07/2026

The Pine Island glacier along with its neighbour, the Thwaites glacier, is responsible for almost half the sea level rise in Antarctica.

New research finds that climate change has been responsible for around 4km – roughly a fifth – of the Pine Island glacier’s retreat.

11/07/2026

"The vast majority of glaciers in temperate mountain ranges like the Tetons are projected to melt away completely by the end of the century, meaning a critical source of water for mountain streams and lakes will disappear. However, where rock glaciers are present, their protected ice will continue to release meltwater into the streams below, buffering the streams against warming temperatures and drying."

They’re called rock glaciers, and they might not look like much, but they’ll continue to provide meltwater after the world’s iconic white glaciers are gone.

04/07/2026

Thwaites glacier is collapsing. Until a few years ago, little was known about the mechanisms driving the glacier’s retreat, such as the melting of the glacier ice by the relatively warm seawater. We have finally got a fuller picture. And the news is dire...

The loss of Antarctica’s doomsday glacier would transform our planet. Now scientists are revealing the secrets of this remotest of places, and asking the question: is its demise inevitable?

29/06/2026

Sheen Alpine Association, born from the success of the Girls in Action trainings held by the Asian Desk of Mountain Wilderness International within the framework of the Swat Project, held their first hiking trip in June.

This grassroots initiative, is the first local women-led outdoor body in the region, and promotes women’s participation in unconventional fields and outdoor activities, including hiking, eco-tourism, mountain exploration, trekking, rock and glacier climbing, climate change awareness and STEM education.

Link in first comment

27/06/2026

The snow and ice accumulated last winter by Switzerland’s glaciers is expected to have all melted away by Monday (June 29th), marking the alarming second-earliest arrival on record of the tipping point known as glacier loss day.

All further melting between now and October will see the size of glaciers in the Swiss Alps shrink.

Accumulation on Switzerland’s glaciers from last winter expected to all be gone by Monday amid ‘enormous’ melt rates across Alps

17/06/2026

The Medvezhiy Glacier lies on the western slope of the Tajik National Academy of Sciences Range, in the heart of Tajikistan’s Pamir Mountains.

In early summer 2011, the Medvezhiy Glacier underwent a sudden and dramatic surge down its valley, which rased serious concerns about the risk of a potential glacial lake outburst flood that could inundate the Vanch River valley.

Read our new blog post.
Link in first comment.

📷 Credits: Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons