66) Païlla Este

The glacier at 66) Païlla Este is separated from the Helero at 65) Astazu by the Hourquette de Païlla, and from the glacier at 67) Païlla Oeste by the buttress of Gran Astazu to the east of the Swan corridor. The East and West Païlla glaciers were part of the same glacier during the Little Ice Age, with a remarkable horizontal headwall of 1,150 m and an area of 25.5 ha. The Païlla East glacier was the fifth largest glacier in the massif during the Ice Age and one of the 30 largest in the Pyrenees.
The current  66) Païlla East icefield, located between 2,500 m and 2,600 m above sea level, ceased to show glacial dynamics in the 1990s. Despite the significant deterioration it has undergone since then, it was always more extensive than it appears visually, as its entire lower section has usually been buried under debris from erosion. The edge of its powerful frontal moraine features unstable erratic blocks that attest to the length this sector reached 175 years ago (360 m).
In 2017, it was reduced to a horizontal strip of ice sheltered by the most protected section of the Gran Astazu wall. Its loss of area has accelerated in recent years, reaching 1 ha in 2024.