The volume of debris in the left-lateral, Little Ice Age (LIA: AD 1550–1850) moraine of the Feegletscher, Valais, Switzerland was compared with the actual volume being transported currently by the glacier. The latter is smaller by a factor of about two. In Tröllaskagi, north Iceland, a surface cover of debris on top of a very slow moving glacier ice mass (glacier noir, rock glacier) has been dated by lichenometry. The age of the oldest part is commensurate with LIA moraines in the area. Knowing the volume of debris of a given age allows an estimate of the debris supply to the glacier in a given time. Again, there appears to have been a significant reduction in debris to the glacier since the turn of the 19th century. Debris input in the early LIA seems to have been particularly copious and this may be important in the formation of some glacier depositional forms such as rock glaciers.