Anti-Glacier Prayer “Worked Too Well”—Vatican Approves New Ritual

After 350 years, and amid a changing climate, Alpine pilgrims warm up to ice.

By Laura Spinney
National Geographic News
August 11, 2012

Fiesch, Switzerland – About 50 people set out on foot from the Swiss village of Fiesch at dawn on July 31. As the sun rose over 13,000-foot (4,000-meter) Alpine peaks, the procession moved slowly up a mountainside and into the cool of a pine forest, stopping at a tiny church.