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6:3 Glarner Alps

Access, Bases, Maps and Guides

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7:1 Silvretta Alps: Lower Engadine

7:2 Silvretta Alps: Prättigau

7:3 Rätikon Alps

7:4 The Alpstein Massif

Access, Bases, Maps and Guides

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The lovely Märjelensee reflects mountains on the far side of the Aletschgletscher (Chapter 5:10)

Northeast of the Titlis the Engelbergtal is flanked by the Spannort peaks (Chapter 6:2)

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.