Into the woods. Lauterbrunnen Valley. Alps. Switzerland

Into the woods. Lauterbrunnen Valley. Alps. Switzerland... more

by Guido Montanes Castillo

Title

Into the woods. Lauterbrunnen Valley. Alps. Switzerland

Artist

Guido Montanes Castillo

Medium

Photograph

Description

Into the woods. Lauterbrunnen Valley. Alps. Switzerland
.Lauterbrunnen is a village and a municipality in the Interlaken-Oberhasli administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.

The municipality comprises the major Lauterbrunnen Valley (German: Lauterbrunnental), the Soustal, the Sefinental, the upper Lauterbrunnen Valley with Untersteinberg including several glaciers, such as the Tschingelfirn and the Rottalgletscher, many Alpine meadows and peaks, such as Schilthorn, Bietenhorn, Schwarzmönch, and Silberhorn, and finally the villages Lauterbrunnen, Wengen, Mürren, Gimmelwald, Stechelberg, and Isenfluh, and several hamlets. The population of the village Lauterbrunnen is less than that of Wengen, but larger than that of the others.
Lauterbrunnen lies at the bottom of a U-shaped valley that extends south and then south-westwards from the village to meet the 8 kilometers (5.0 mi) Lauterbrunnen Wall. The Lauterbrunnen Valley (Lauterbrunnental) is one of the deepest in the Alpine chain when compared with the height of the mountains that rise directly on either side. It is a true cleft, rarely more than one kilometre in width, between limestones precipices, sometimes quite perpendicular, everywhere of extreme steepness. It is to this form of the valley that it owes the numerous waterfalls from which it derives its name. The streams descending from the adjoining mountains, on reaching the verge of the rocky walls of the valley, form cascades so high that they are almost lost in spray before they reach the level of the valley. The most famous of these are the Staubbach Fall, less than one kilometre from the village of Lauterbrunnen. The height of the cascade is between 800 and 900 feet (240 and 270 m), one of the highest in Europe formed of a single unbroken fall.[5]

The river Weisse Lütschine flows through Lauterbrunnen and overflows its banks about once a year. The source of the river comes from melting snow high in the mountains, thus making it a very pure and clean source of water. It is common practice in the camp sites to chill drinks in the water. Trummelbach Falls is 3 km (1.9 mi) from Lauterbrunnen, connected by bus from the station.[6]

The municipality of Lauterbrunnen extends a considerable distance beyond the village and valley, with an area of 164.51 km2 (63.52 sq mi). It reaches as far as the peaks of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau to the east, the Gletscherhorn, Mittaghorn, Grosshorn, Breithorn and Tschingelhorn to the south, and the Gspaltenhorn and Schilthorn to the west. The Kleine Scheidegg Pass crosses over to Grindelwald to the east, whilst the Sefinenfurgge Pass crosses to Griesalp and Reichenbach im Kandertal to the west; both passes carry hiking trails that form part of the Alpine Pass Route, a long-distance hiking trail across Switzerland between Sargans and Montreux. Besides the village of Lauterbrunnen, the municipality also includes the villages of Wengen, Mürren, Gimmelwald, Stechelberg, and Isenfluh.[7][8][9]

Of the municipal area, 36.79 km2 (14.20 sq mi) or 22.4% is used for agricultural purposes, while 28.84 km2 (11.14 sq mi) or 17.5% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 2.31 km2 (0.89 sq mi) or 1.4% is settled (buildings or roads), 1.08 km2 (0.42 sq mi) or 0.7% is either rivers or lakes and 95.39 km2 (36.83 sq mi) or 58.0% is unproductive land. Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 0.7% and transportation infrastructure made up 0.5%. Out of the forested land, 13.6% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.0% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 3.5% is pastures and 18.9% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. Of the unproductive areas, 10.3% is unproductive vegetation, 31.3% is too rocky for vegetation and 16.3% of the land is covered by glaciers.[10]

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January 13th, 2020