B) Aneto – Maladeta

We consider the Aneto-Maladeta Massif to be the group of peaks located between Punta Russell Oriental and Pico de Alba, to which we add the sectors of Tuc de Mulleres – La Forcanada (Mall del Puïs) and Feixant – La Tallada (belonging to the Aran Valley). The main chain, together with its buttresses, is home to around forty peaks over 3,000 metres high, with the Pico de Aneto (3,404 m) as the highest peak in the Pyrenees. The massif contains the most extensive glacier complex in the whole mountain range. Its 48.7 ha of glacier surface represent 37.3% of the Pyrenean ice, housing two of the largest glaciers on the Spanish side: the Aneto Glacier and the Eastern Glacier of the Maladeta.

During the Little Ice Age it was also, with 701.8 ha, the massif with the greatest glacial extension, representing 29.4% of the total area of the Pyrenees during that period. Since the Little Ice Age, this massif has lost 93% of its ice surface.

The number of glaciers identified at the beginning of the 1980s was 17, which in 2024 was reduced to 6: 3 active glaciers and 3 icefields. A further 11 glaciers are now completely extinct.

Over the last four decades, in addition to extinctions, there have been numerous divisions and splits that have broken up the former glaciers and ice fields, accelerating the process of ice disappearance.