the snowline in summer (camping included) may be vulnerable. The risk of tick bites can be reduced by using an effective insect repellent, and by covering areas of exposed skin with suitable clothing, and a TBE vaccine is now available in UK travel clinics and some GP surgeries. For more information go to www.masta.org/tickalert.
A rocky section of trail leading from the Gasterntal to the Lötschenpass above Kandersteg (Chapter 5:5)
If you take regular medication, make sure you have an adequate supply to last throughout your visit, and make a note of the generic name of the medication (not the brand name) which will make it easier to get a replacement should you inadvertently run out.
Water is safe to drink from most of the numerous fountains seen throughout the country, unless there’s a notice stating otherwise: Kein Trinkwasser and eau non potable mean the water is unsafe to drink. Stream water should be treated with caution, as polluting animals may be grazing above the source. To ensure stream water is safe to drink, either boil thoroughly or use a special filter.
In winter as in summer, it’s easy to get sunburnt or suffer from heat stroke in the mountains – especially at altitude – so protect yourself with a brimmed hat, a liberal coating of sunscreen and lip salve. At the other end of the spectrum, hypothermia can affect anyone in summer or winter when their body loses heat faster than it can produce it, and the core temperature falls to dangerous levels. This is most likely to happen in wet and windy conditions, and when suffering from exhaustion. Try to avoid getting soaked by wearing good waterproofs and layers of warm clothing, including gloves and hat. If you or your partner show early signs of hypothermia get out of the wind and into some form of shelter (tent, bivvy bag or large polythene bag), replace any wet clothing with dry, eat some high-energy food and drink hot sugary liquids. Do not drink alcohol, or rub the patient to restore circulation, and avoid further exertion.
The Dammastock group in central Switzerland (Chapter 6:1)
Health insurance
All medical treatment in Switzerland must be paid for, but note that the European health insurance card is also valid, which entitles the holder to reciprocal arrangements for the reimbursement of some costs of medical treatment (check limitations which are printed on forms available at UK post offices). However, the EHIC is no substitute for proper health insurance, so walkers, skiers and climbers should make sure they have adequate cover appropriate for their chosen activity; it should include personal accident, sickness and mountain rescue. The British Mountaineering Council (BMC) provides a comprehensive insurance service for its members, with policies covering travel, trekking, rock climbing, mountaineering and winter sports (www.thebmc.co.uk). Note also that the UK branch of the Austrian Alpine Club provides insurance cover to members for basic rescue, medical emergencies and repatriation (www.aacuk.co.uk).
THE MOUNTAINS
The Alps in winter – a pristine world of great beauty
Daubed with snow and ice and interspersed with lakes and lush green valleys, the Alps spread across the southern and central regions of Switzerland to give the country its dominant physical presence. Below the mountains to the north lies the more populated and industrial Mittelland, beyond which the relatively low limestone range of the Jura folds into France.
Despite being created some 90–100 million years ago when Africa collided with the Eurasian tectonic plate, pushing the land into waves of rock that eventually took shape as the mountains we see today, the Alps are still young in geological terms. Constantly reshaping, their youthful nature is characterised by jagged peaks and sharp ridges sculpted by ice and water. As they rise, the mountains are being worn down. Frost shatters immense blocks. Glaciers gouge chunks of rock and spew them out as moraine debris, and year upon year their torrents bring down tens of thousands of tons of mountain in the shape of silt and mud to nourish the fertile lowland fields.
Global warming increases that process of mountain destruction, not just by the melting of snowfields and glaciers, but the permafrost too. In many places the rock is so fragmented that it is only glued together by ice. When that melts, the mountains, or large portions of them, fall down. In April 1991 a large section of the Langenflueberg collapsed into the Mattertal near Randa, demolishing the railway, blocking the river and cutting the upper valley off for several days. In the July 2003 heatwave massive rockfalls marooned 70 climbers above 3400m on the Matterhorn’s Hörnli ridge. A little under two years later 500,000 cubic metres of moraine collapsed onto the Lower Grindelwald glacier below the Fiescherwand, taking a restaurant with it. The following year an estimated 1.5 million cubic metres of rock broke away from the Eiger’s southeast flank; shortly after an impressive 50,000 cubic metre flake of rock detached itself from the east flank of the same mountain and stood precariously in the glacier gorge above Grindelwald.
In common with all alpine glaciers, the Oberer Grindelwaldgletscher is shrinking fast
As this book goes to print the Swiss Alps are changing shape, and it is inevitable that some of the descriptions – not only of peaks, glaciers and snowfields, but routes to their summits – will have become outdated; such is the speed of change.
Climate change and global warming may be 21st-century buzzwords, but from about one million years ago the Alps have experienced a cycle of extended cold periods (ice ages), rapidly followed by climatically warmer intervals; each cycle lasting about 2000 years. Until these ice ages began, it is thought that the mountains consisted of bare rock peaks divided by narrow V-shaped river valleys, but then came the glaciers which covered all but the highest summits and ridges of the Central Alps, filling the valleys and stretching out into the lowlands. Reaching its peak about 25,000 years ago, the last great ice age smothered much of modern Switzerland, widening and deepening the alpine valleys, chiselling and sharpening peaks and smoothing rock walls. It was then that the Rhône glacier stretched 150km from its source near the Furkapass to the Lake of Geneva.
When the last great ice age drew to an end, glaciers slowly retreated, revealing characteristic U-shaped valleys, and great banks of terminal moraine formed dams that turned rivers of meltwater into the lakes for which Switzerland is also known. When the glacier that had filled the Surselva valley on the east side of the Oberalp Pass withdrew, a vast section of mountain collapsed into the valley below where Flims now stands, blocking the river for a length of something like 15km. When the pressure of water finally broke through the blockage, a wall of water swept downvalley causing much devastation.
In the warm period of 2000–4000 years ago, much less ice covered the Alps than there is today. Relics found near the 3301m summit of the Theodulpass show that it was snow-free in Roman times, and the tongues of 1st-century glaciers were then at least 300m higher than they are now. Throughout the Middle Ages, a number of passes that are covered by glaciers today were free from snow and ice and were in regular use.
But glaciers began to advance again from the 15th century onwards, reaching their greatest extent around 1850 during what has been referred to as a mini ice age. Visiting Grindelwald in 1723 Horace Mann reported that an exorcist had been employed to halt the advance of the glaciers that were threatening to engulf the village, while a century later James David Forbes described an advancing glacier invading fields of corn, and of seeing peasants gathering ripe cherries ‘with one foot standing on the ice’.
