Glacier de l'Arve, Alpine glacier in Haute-Savoie, France.

Glacier de l'Arve is a vanished Alpine glacier, not a visible ice body: no ice mass remains in the Arve Valley. It formed in the Chamonix Valley where the Mer de Glace, the Bossons and the Taconnaz glaciers converged, then flowed north-west and joined the Giffre glacier, then the Rhône glacier, as it reached the Lake Geneva basin. Its main course followed today's Arve valley; the river now occupies that bed.

The glacier existed during several glaciations. It formed in the Chamonix valley where the Mer de Glace, the Bossons and the Taconnaz glaciers met, then flowed north-west and joined the Giffre glacier, then the Rhône glacier as it reached the Lake Geneva basin. At glacial maxima its ice, over 2,000 m at the valley exit, was blocked by the Arve gorge and pushed diffluences south into the Val Montjoie, Val d'Arly and the Aravis pass. It has now entirely disappeared.

The name survives in the Arve, the river that now occupies the glacier's main valley; the ice itself is gone. The glaciers that once fed it from the Chamonix Valley still exist in part: the Mer de Glace, the Bossons and the Taconnaz. Since the Chamonix Valley fully deglaciated, the Arve rises at the Tête de Balme on the Franco-Swiss border, further upstream than the glacier did.

No ice remains, so the former glacier is traced through the Arve valley itself: the river now runs where the ice flowed, from the Chamonix valley down toward the Lake Geneva basin. The Arve rises at the tête de Balme on the Franco-Swiss border, further upstream than the glacier's own source. Look for the cluse de l'Arve, the narrow gorge where the ice was forced to split toward the val Montjoie, val d'Arly and the Aravis pass.

At glacial maxima the ice surface stood above 2,000 m at the exit of the Chamonix valley. Blocked by the narrow Arve gorge, the glacier sent diffluences south up the val Montjoie, val d'Arly and col des Aravis, and through the Annecy gap, at times flowing uphill and burying Le Prarion, mont d'Arbois and Rochebrune.