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INTRODUCTION

Extending in a huge arc from the Mediterranean coast near Nice to the low wooded hills on the outskirts of Vienna, the Alps are the world’s best known mountains. Over the past two centuries every peak, ridge and valley has been mapped and explored, every glacier measured, every natural beauty described, advertised and, in some way or other, exploited. Library shelves groan beneath the weight of books that record the range’s history, detail its geology, or recount tales of adventure on rockface and icefall illustrated with stunning coloured photographs, while guidebooks by the hundred, in who knows how many languages, provide all the detail required to move with a degree of confidence and safety from valley bed to snow-capped summit.

Over 50 years ago J. Hubert Walker published his classic Walking in the Alps. This finely crafted book was directed at the British hill walker and mountaineer ‘of modest attainment’ who had not yet grown familiar with the greater heights of the Alps. It was a selective book, of course, both in the Alpine groups described and in the routes suggested, but it succeeded in everything the author set out to achieve. With the most elegant prose Walker unfolded the Alpine landscape so that it became as clear as if one were studying a series of photographs, and with instinctive skill led his reader into some of the loveliest of all valleys, onto hillsides that would display the finest views, and over passes that gave the greatest contrasts. Without preaching, and without stressing his own accomplishments, Walker gently advised where the best walks and climbs were to be had, and then made suggestions for filling a holiday of a week or more in a round that would provide a sense of achievement and enough memories to last a lifetime.

For over three decades Walker’s book has been my Alpine bible. It has been, and still is, a constant source of inspiration and pleasure; there’s not a dull paragraph in it. But of course, in half a century the Alps have changed – by this I mean some of the mountains as well as valleys and villages. Glaciers are receding fast; some have disappeared completely. Some of the glens much loved by Walker have been flooded for hydro-electricity schemes. Once remote hillsides are now adorned with chairlift and cable-car, and bulldozed pistes scar mountain flanks where before only the chamois strayed. And with an explosion of interest in all forms of mountain activity, footpaths have multiplied and at times the busiest all-but resemble shopping malls in the run-up to Christmas. That is not to suggest the Alps are finished, played out, or ‘destroyed’ in their wild and pristine sense, as claimed by some activists at the sharp end of the climbing world, but there are certainly more honeypot regions now than Walker himself would have known. Penned a century and more ago, the description, ‘the Playground of Europe’ was never more apt than it is today. There are still wonderlands left, though, thank heaven; still a few permanently inhabited villages where no roads lead and where the only means of approach is by walking for a couple of hours or more. There are walkers’ passes and lonely alps virtually unvisited from one year-end to the next – yes, even in Switzerland – and trails to follow in mid-summer where you can find as much solitude as you wish. And the glory of the high Alps remains as fresh as it always has been. If you know where to look.

Walker’s book continues to feed dreams. However, in order to make those dreams come true it needs updating to fit the Alps as they are in reality today. For several years I’d been assembling notes in order to do just that, when I received a phone call one day from Walt Unsworth (now retired) at Cicerone. ‘Do you know Hubert Walker’s Walking in the Alps?’ he asked. ‘We’d like to publish something along those lines, bringing Walker up-to-date but with wider coverage, and hope you’ll take it on.’ This, then, is the result. It’s a volume that, in trying to cover virtually the whole complex Alpine chain, attempts the impossible. From the start I acknowledge its failings for I know that before the ink is dry on the page, the occasional passage contained in this book will be obsolete, thanks to the evolution of Alpine development. I offer my apologies and beg the reader’s understanding.

Like its namesake this book sets out to describe some of the loveliest Alpine regions from the point of view of the walker who is, after all, in the most favoured position to witness and enjoy mountain scenery in all its abundant variety. The motorist is divorced from all that is best in the Alps by being restricted to the highway. The non-active tourist is confined to mechanised means of uplift, the climber’s attention is for the most part taken up with the intricacies of his chosen route, while the downhill skier needs full concentration in the rush to get to the foot of the slope without accident. Only the mountain walker, the individual with good general fitness, a modicum of scrambling experience and an eye for the hills, can move far enough and at the right pace to enjoy the full range of wonders that the Alps so generously offer. This is the person for whom this book is written. It attempts to reveal the multitude of opportunities available. Not with precise route descriptions, a number of which may be found within available guidebooks mentioned in each chapter’s summary, but by giving a nudge in the right direction. Happily, detailed guidebooks do not exist for each and every individual district described, and I have specifically avoided giving too much information about some of my favourite areas about which little has been published, for it is good to retain that element of surprise that may only be experienced when you make a ‘discovery’ of your own. Hints will be found within these pages as to where some of these special places lie, but you’ll have to work them out for yourself, while other routes and multi-day treks are treated to rather more detail.

In the early days of the Alpine Club there was a kind of division between those who saw themselves as ‘centrists’ and those who claimed to be ‘ex-centrists’. The first class of mountaineer based himself in Grindelwald, Chamonix or Zermatt, say, and from there struck out to climb the local peaks, after which he would always return to the same valley hotel. The ‘ex-centrist’ on the other hand (and first-rate examples of this class were F. F. Tuckett and Martin Conway), would travel from one region to the other across passes and glaciers on their way to climb. The same could be said today of the mountain walker. One walker chooses a particular valley base and goes out day by day to wander the local trails, the other fills his rucksack and sets out from hut to hut or camp to camp on a tour lasting anything from a few days to a month or more. There’s much to be said in favour of both methods of approach, and lucky the man who has the opportunity to enjoy each one! In this book I’ve taken account of both the ‘centrist’ and ‘ex-centrist’ point of view, for the Alps are big enough to encompass both, and to reward in generous fashion.

An attempt has been made to define the topography of each Alpine group in turn, for in order to work out a tour of any region it is first necessary to understand what features will confuse the onward route. Major valleys and their feeder glens are looked at with an eye to spending a day or so enjoying their tarns, ridges, meadows and distant views. Where huts exist these are often mentioned as an overnight base or as the goal for a walk which returns to the valley at the end of the day. Later, when multi-day tours are considered, these huts will often form the only lodgings. Mostly I have avoided routes that stray onto crevassed glaciers, the assumption being made here that equipment such as ice-axe, rope and crampons will not automatically be carried on a walking holiday. Some of the summits visited by Walker are similarly dismissed from this present book for much the same reason, although I have included certain peaks that demand little more technical skill than would be required to gain modest summits in lesser ranges. I have also outlined one glacier tour in the Bernese Alps as a sample illustration of the delights to be had in such travel – once the necessary skills have been acquired and equipment carried.

As suggested at the beginning of this Introduction, the mountaineer’s library is a rich one, and following Walker’s lead I have chosen to quote here and there passages that to me sum up the essence of most districts under review. The reason for this is twofold. Firstly we can hold a mirror to the Alps known by those who preceded us, and learn from their experience. And secondly by so doing I hope to introduce newcomers to the Alps to writers of the past, for they have much to offer. At the end of each chapter I’ve given a list of books from which further enjoyment may be gained.

The Alps of course is a vast subject, and the more we walk and the more we read, so the chain seems to grow in extent; but as was once pointed out by R. L. G. Irving, its very size increases the possibility of my having added something new to those whose experience of the range is greater than my own. With each valley traversed and each successive pass gained, so I become more aware of how much there is yet to see – such are human limitations in a world so full of scenic goodness. I cannot claim to have explored every corner of these mountains whilst undertaking research for this book; nor is one lifetime sufficient to do more than scratch the surface. But it has been an immensely satisfying project, built on the back of dozens of active seasons stretching back to the mid-sixties. What a marvellous excuse to revisit mountains and valleys first wandered decades ago! And what an opportunity to explore other parts of the Alps that I’d never managed to see before! Yet still there remain enough tours untrod to last another three lifetimes ...

In this book I make no claim to match Walker’s erudition, only his enthusiasm for these peaks, passes and valleys. His was the initial inspiration. May this present volume serve to inspire you to dream, and then lead you among the mountains where I fervently hope you will harvest as much pleasure as I have gained whilst walking in the Alps.

The Lötschental, near Eisen in the Bernese Alps (Chapter 6)