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John Cleare, Collins Guide to Mountains & Mountaineering

This tremendous range of snow- and ice-clad mountains holds the largest concentration of 4000m peaks west of the Caucasus, among them Matterhorn, Weisshorn, Zinalrothorn, Monte Rosa, Ober Gabelhorn, Dent Blanche, Grand Combin and Dom – the highest mountain entirely in Switzerland. With some of the best-placed centres for mountaineering in all the Alps, there’s also unlimited potential for walking holidays of all standards, immense scope for top-quality ski tours, and scenery to rival that of anywhere in Europe. Yet despite the popularity of the district, and the iconic status of so many of its peaks, it is still possible to walk and climb there in surprising isolation, even in the height of summer.

Col de Riedmatten, link between the Dix Hut and Arolla (Chapter 2.5)

A succession of valleys and their tributaries drain northward into the Rhône. The headwall of many of these valleys is crowned with snowfields and glaciers, but in some cases the high mountains thrust forward away from the watershed crest along projecting ridge systems that effectively extend the snow cover further north. Beyond the snow and ice, these ridges are crossed by numerous cols of varying degrees of difficulty that attract the walker and trekker. And while mountaineering attention is naturally focused on the higher summits, more modest ascents are possible on numerous ‘lesser’ peaks which, standing as they often do apart from the more dramatic mountains, reward with some of the finest views of all.