Waterfalls in Switzerland: nature's force.
| Auteur | Mawson, Emily |
| Fonction | Travel: destination switzerland |
There is little so magical as the scene of the Alps awakening after winter. When frost crackles underfoot as the ground thaws, frozen ribbons split and gush, becoming tumbling tresses of water. The waterfalls have reclaimed the mountains and their icy sheaths are no longer are a playground for ice climbers.
One of the most dramatic features of the mountain landscape, waterfalls can be soft and gentle--a length of lace against a sharp cliff--or roaring (and too powerful ever to freeze over), rushing into a basin of violent white foam that is ready to gobble up anything that ventures nearby think of Switzerland's Reichenbach Falls where fictional detective Sherlock Holmes meets his end.
Indeed, if ever there were a force of nature to be set to classical music, waterfalls are it. They form when the course of a river runs over layers of rock composed of different degrees of hardness, causing the softer layers to erode. Their size depends on factors including geology, precipitation and the depth of their drainage basin--hence the vast breadth of the Europe's largest waterfall, the Rhine Falls.
Waterfalls are measured using special equipment: "We used binoculars with an integrated laser tool to measure distances, slope angles and compass angles," explains Florian Spichtig, author of Die Wasserfalle der Schweiz (The Waterfalls of Switzerland), a study of 120 falls in the country.
Spichtig is not sure how many waterfalls there are in Switzerland, but he says that many of them are in the sweep of land between south-west Canton Valais and the Rhine Valley. Some of them have inspired poets (see Staubbach Falls opposite); others have attracted visitors in their hordes, since their marketing potential was recognised and commercialised from the late 19th century. Around this time, an entire world sprang up around the frothing Giessbach Falls. Meanwhile, the Rhine Falls area nowadays is littered with hotels and tourist attractions. And still today, many of Switzerland's waterfalls make for a simply delightful destination after an invigorating afternoon's walk. So after a winter cooped up indoors, why not grab your jacket and head out with our guide to six of the finest?
Dancing dust: Staubbach Falls
"The soul of man is like water. It comes from heaven and rises again to heaven," wrote Germany's greatest poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, after seeing the lace-like ribbon of the Staubbach Falls. Lord Byron later described the same falls as "the tail of the...
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