Oulettes de Gaube Glacier, Mountain glacier in Hautes-Pyrénées, France.
The Oulettes de Gaube Glacier is a body of ice on the northern slope of Vignemale in the Pyrenees. It sits at an average elevation of approximately 2,400 meters (7,875 feet) and spans several hundred meters across steep rock faces.
It was once connected to the Petit-Vignemale Glacier as one unified ice mass until approximately 1850. Rising temperatures caused the two bodies to separate and become distinct formations.
The name Oulettes means "small pots", describing the small basin at the foot of the Vignemale where the ice sits; Gaube means "lake" in Occitan. The glacier's meltwater feeds the gave de Gaube. Since 2007 a rock step has appeared below the crevassed section, tending to split the ice in two, and the lower part is now covered with a layer of stones hiding the ice.
The glacier sits in a small basin at the foot of the Vignemale's north face, below the Gaube couloir, and its meltwater feeds the gave de Gaube. Approach from the Gaube valley; the ice is steep and heavily crevassed, with fissures over 30 metres deep and wide, so keep to the rock walls and moraines rather than the glacier itself.
It moves at speeds of 50 to 70 meters per year, making it one of the fastest-changing ice formations in the Pyrenees. This rapid motion makes it a compelling subject for observing glacier dynamics in the region.
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