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WONDERS OF NATURE
Mount Matterhorn. Nature miracle
The highest mountains of Europe - the Alps - border the base of the Italian "boot" - the Apennine Peninsula, stretching from the Gulf of Lion to the ancient Viennese bridges on the blue Danube. A huge mountainous country (1200 kilometers long and up to two hundred wide) crosses the borders of six large countries: Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Slovenia, capturing Monaco and Liechtenstein at the same time. Nature has gathered here a whole collection of wonders that attract millions of tourists, climbers, rock climbers, skiers, artists, photographers and just curious people to the Alps. The Danube, the Rhine, the Rhone and the Po begin from the Alpine glaciers, then scatter in all directions and flow into four different seas. There are also beautiful waterfalls here, among them the 380-meter Krimml and the XNUMX-meter Giesbach and Staubbach, the wide Rhine and Reichenbach, known to fans of Sherlock Holmes, where the glorious detective almost died in a fight with the villain Moriarty.
Dozens of deep and transparent mountain lakes shine like precious pearls in the valleys of the Alps. Interestingly, the six largest and most picturesque divided two countries among themselves: Italy got Lago Maggiore, Como and Garda, and Switzerland - Geneva, Neuchâtel and Constance. However, Austria and Germany also received a piece of Lake Constance, and a corner of Geneva borders on France, so they did not remain at a loss. However, the main treasures of the mountainous region are, of course, its snowy peaks. All fourteen of the highest mountains in Europe, exceeding four kilometers in height, are located in the Alps. The highest of them - Mont Blanc - rises to 4807 meters. (Actually, Mont Blanc is not a mountain, but an extended massif with ten peaks, each of which is higher than 4000 meters.) The Alps are the birthplace of sports mountain climbing, which began here in the 1786th century. For almost forty years, climbers of that time tried to storm Mont Blanc, until in XNUMX the French doctor Paccard and his guide, mountain goat hunter Jean Balma, failed. From the point of view of geologists, the Alps are young mountains. Ice and water, sun and wind have not yet had time to smooth out their rocky ridges. However, this is precisely what attracts fans to fight with stone giants here. Every climber has their favorite peaks. But if you ask them which one is the most beautiful of all, anyone will answer unequivocally: of course, the Matterhorn. Indeed, neither the mighty Mont Blanc, nor the portly Jungfrau, nor the majestic Zugspitze can be compared with the picturesque outlines of the slender four-sided pyramid of the Matterhorn. Like a gigantic obelisk, its snow-covered peak, equally well visible from Italy and Switzerland, flies up to the sky. The Matterhorn is only fifth in height among the Alpine peaks, but in terms of the difficulty of climbing it has no equal among its neighbors. Each of its triangular face is a tough nut to crack even for a professional climber. It is no coincidence that people were able to conquer the Matterhorn for the first time only 80 years after Mont Blanc, in 1865. And the southern, most difficult slope of the mountain remained undefeated until 1931. Now climbing its 4500-meter pyramid is easier than in the old days: rock hooks are driven in on especially difficult sections and safety ropes are pulled. But still, even now the Matterhorn does not allow anyone to joke with him. His cool temper was experienced not only by beginners and amateurs. Professional Alpine guide - Herman Perret, who lived at the foot of the Matterhorn in the town of Zermatt, promised that he would climb the mountain 150 times! He fell into the abyss and crashed at the age of 68, during the one hundred and forty-second ascent ... Not only mountains are dangerous, but also the passes of the Alps, especially in winter, when snowstorms sweep up the roads on them. Of the many alpine mountain passes, perhaps the most famous is the Great St. Bernard, a rocky gap in the Pennine Alps, forty kilometers from the Matterhorn, at an altitude of almost two and a half kilometers. This pass is the only way through the highest alpine ridge, where, in addition to Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn, there are as many as six "four-thousanders", and four more - on the side spurs. At the same time, this is the route from France through Switzerland to Italy, since the border of the last two countries passes along the Pennine Alps. The huge elevation difference, the abundance of glaciers and the inaccessibility of the steep slopes did not make it possible to lay a pack path through the ridge along other valleys. By the way, the steepness of the mountains is also evidenced by the large number of waterfalls on the local rivers. The highest of them, Marmore, falls from a height of 165 meters in a narrow gorge, laid by the river of the same name on the southern, Italian slope of the ridge just under the Matterhorn. Great St. Bernard has been used by people since time immemorial. Once upon a time, the army of Hannibal passed through it to Italy, which included, in addition to cavalry and infantry, the secret weapon of the great Carthaginian commander - war elephants. Alas, the formidable animals turned out to be defenseless against snow and frost, and only one out of a hundred and fifty "live tanks" descended from the mountains to the plain. Crossing the pass is difficult and dangerous even today. It is not easy to climb a steep path with a two-kilometer elevation difference. Above the border of the forest, the landscape becomes harsh and gloomy: rocks, rocks - nothing but rocks. The last kilometers pass under the Death Crest - a steep avalanche-prone slope, from which snow falls regularly roll down, burying gaping travelers under them. A fierce icy wind constantly blows on the saddle of the pass, and the lake located here is covered with ice 265 days a year. In the middle of the XNUMXth century, a monastery was built on the Great Saint Bernard. By the name of its founder - the priest Bernard, the pass got its current name. Bernard and his associates dedicated themselves to saving people on the mountain paths. Each morning, one of the monks would come down the path with a supply of food and wine to help exhausted or freezing travelers. In winter, the road for travelers was marked with poles. Everyone knows the breed of St. Bernard dogs, bred in this mountain monastery. Huge dogs, weighing up to 80 kilograms, searched for lost people in the fog and snowstorm, warmed them with their bodies, and a barrel of wine tied to the dog’s neck and a first-aid kit on its back allowed travelers to hold out until the end of the blizzard and, together with their four-legged savior, go out to housing. Known to many is the legendary St. Bernard Barry, who saved forty people in his life from death in the snows of a formidable pass. Tradition says that the forty-first traveler, whom Barry dug out of a snowdrift, shot him, mistaking him for a wolf. Fortunately, this is just a legend: the well-deserved dog lived to a ripe old age, and his stuffed animal still adorns the museum in the city of Bern, where he spent his last years. The lifestyle of the Alpine highlanders has not changed since prehistoric times. The XNUMXth century added only a transistor receiver to the shepherd's equipment. Everything is the same as a hundred and a thousand years ago, in summer they drive cattle to high-mountain meadows, and in winter they go down to the valleys. Hunters, like pastoralists, climb mountains only in the warm season, because even in early autumn there is always a risk of being caught in a sudden snow storm and freezing or falling into the abyss due to poor visibility. A recent sad discovery in the Tyrolean Alps tells us about one such unnamed tragedy. In 1991, two climbers found in the snow on one of the high mountain glaciers the mummified body of a man who, apparently, froze and lay under the snow for many years. Scientists took up the discovery, and what they managed to establish literally shocked them. The remains, as it turned out, belonged to ... a Bronze Age man who ended up on a glacier three thousand years before our era! The prehistoric hunter, dressed in a leather jacket and trousers, had with him a bow with arrows, a flint knife and a copper ax with a wooden handle. The significance of this discovery for science can hardly be overestimated. The study of the unique mummy continues, and, I think, anthropologists and historians will be able to learn a lot about the way of life of our distant ancestors thanks to it. Fifty centuries have passed since the time when people of the Bronze Age bravely climbed for prey to high-mountain glaciers, sometimes risking their own lives, fifty centuries have passed. And today, it is no longer hunger and the search for game, but natural curiosity and an indefatigable desire to see with your own eyes the most beautiful corners of the Alpine valleys and ridges every year bring thousands of tourists from all continents to the trails and passes of the highest mountain system in Europe. It is believed that a considerable part of these travelers, of those who value not only comfort and speed, but also the primordial nature of their travels, will pay a well-deserved tribute of admiration to the most impregnable mountain range in the Alps. And, forgetting about the museums and monuments of the sleepy towns down there, the tourist will put on a windbreaker and mountain boots, pick up an ice ax and go to the snow-covered slopes of the Pennine Alps, above which the diamond faces of the slender Matterhorn pyramid shine in the sun. Author: B.Wagner
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