Ballooning in the Swiss Alps: flying over the Alps in a wicker basket is truly a unique experience. Safari trips with gas balloons--not the hot air Montgolfier types--often reach heights of over 4000 metres above sea level. Ahead of the International High Alpine Ballooning Weeks, August 7 to 20 in Kandersteg, Swiss News learns more.
Taking passengers along in a balloon for a reasonable fee was not the idea of professional tourism managers or corporate executives in search of a marketing niche. Instead it was the splendid dream of a man, fascinated by balloons. who went by the name of Captain Spelterini.
Born Eduard Schweizer in the village of Bazenheld St. Gallen, in 1852, he went on to train as an 'aeronaut' at the Academie d'Aerostation de France. A year after graduation, in 1878, he succeeded in flying from Paris-Neuilly to the Bois de Boulogne. By the time he flew over his own country of Switzerland, he was already celebrated for his craft in Austria, England, Egypt, Italy and South Africa.
Captain Spelterini made his silent ascents with the big names of his time, officers of high rank, journalists and veiled ladies of the Orient, and seemed fearless in the face of even his most spectacular landings. Also a gifted photographer, he supplied some of the earliest images of the sport.
Lessons learned
Captain Spelterini began his Swiss expeditions with a balloon ride from Sion in the canton of Valais in western Switzerland on October 3 1898. By the outbreak World War I in 1914, he had managed ascents from Zermatt, the Eiger Glacier station on Jungfrau Railway, Andermatt, Interlaken, Chamonix, Murren and Kandersteg.
Others followed his example, including German Oakar Erbsloh who in 1909 flew from St. Moritz to Milan, over Venice, over the Karawanken Mountains and on to Budapest.
One of the best fliers of the time was Brazilian-German Victor de Beauclair, a sportsman living in Switzerland who flew three passengers from the Eiger Glacier station above Wengen and Grindelwald, over the Bernese Alps and the Simplon Pass to Stresa in Northern Italy.
But it didn't always go as planned. On March 16, 1907, de Beauclair took oft from Davos, and flew too high at 7,000 metres, with the result that he and his...
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