The Swiss Alps. Kev Reynolds

      INTRODUCTION

      Up there in the sky, to which only clouds belong and birds and the last trembling colours of pure light, they stood fast and hard; not moving as do the things of the sky … These, the great Alps, seen thus, link one in some way to one’s immortality.

      Hilaire Belloc, The Path to Rome

      After the Mont Blanc range the Swiss Alps contain the highest and most spectacular mountains in Western Europe, as well as the longest glacier, the greatest number of 4000m summits, and numerous other peaks on which the foundations of alpinism were forged. The 1786 ascent of Mont Blanc by Paccard and Balmat may have signalled the beginnings of alpine interest and activity under a veil of scientific enquiry, but in the same decade the Benedictine monk Father Placidus à Spescha was busy climbing and exploring the Glarner and Adula Alps with an undisguised passion for mountains and mountaineering that is now shared by tens of thousands of visitors who flock to Switzerland in summer and winter alike.

      With their rich variety of massifs, their snowpeaks and immense rock faces, their glaciers, lakes and waterfalls, their forests, flower meadows and pastures, the Swiss Alps may justifiably claim to be the quintessential Alps, a love of which is not confined simply to those who walk, climb or ski among them, but also shared by the frail and elderly and those content simply to sit and gaze in wonder. Yet thanks to its mountains, more than a century after Leslie Stephen coined the phrase, Switzerland remains for many the playground of Europe.

      The Alps are without question the best known of all the world’s mountains, and those that tower over the valleys of Switzerland count among the most easily recognised by both connoisseur and layman alike. The Matterhorn instantly comes to mind, but it is not the only one, for Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau are symbolic of the Oberland, and the graceful buttresses of Piz Palü in the Bernina range, for example, are depicted on calendar and chocolate box with as much frequency as the proverbial edelweiss and flower-hung chalet. Yet familiarity with such mountains should not breed contempt, for the beauty of the Swiss Alps remains a perennial gift for all to admire.