Читать книгу Walking in the Valais. 120 Walks and Treks онлайн

14 страница из 88

In several valleys enormous dams have been constructed, reservoirs created, and hundreds of kilometres of tunnels and aqueducts laid as part of the complex Grande Dixence hydro-electric scheme, a scheme that transformed large areas of the Pennine Alps of canton Valais in the latter half of the 20th century, and which conservationists today are anxious to prevent from spreading further.

Fortunately such developments are not experienced everywhere in the region, and there are scores of enchanting areas where the mountain wanderer can tread in the footsteps of the pioneers with nothing of the twenty-first century to tarnish his vision of untamed wildness. For although the peaks and valleys of Switzerland have all been mapped, named, measured and photographed, although their exploration has been recorded in so many different languages that it seems there is nothing left to discover, the perceptive wanderer who takes to the steeply winding trail across the alps of the Valais with his eyes alert and senses tuned will find many a surprise waiting just around the corner or over the next hillside bluff.