Читать книгу Walking in the Bernese Oberland. Over 100 walking routes онлайн

72 страница из 77

Buddhist prayer flags bring a touch of the Himalaya to the Unteraargletscher

At the far end of the lake (2–2½hrs) the path takes you onto the moraine-covered Unteraargletscher. From here the way is marked with poles and cairns on the right-hand (northern) side of the glacier, meandering to find the easiest route. On the glacier has been built a huge chorten, complete with prayer flags, which adds to the Himalayan, or Karakoram-like atmosphere.

In the first half of the 19th century the Swiss glaciologist, Louis Agassiz, built a shelter on the Unteraargletscher as a base for his studies. The so-called Hôtel des Neuchatelois consisted of ‘a large cave on a rock-island in the middle of the glacier, formed by a huge overhanging block of mica schist, made more weatherproof by a wall of stones, and more comfortable by layers of grass and oilcloth’. In the summer of 1841, James David Forbes, the young Scots geologist, adopted the ‘hotel’ as his base not only for scientific studies, but also to make the fourth ascent (and first British ascent) of the Jungfrau.