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Pocket Switzerland

Dufourspitze

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Summit · canton of Valais · 4634 m

The roof of Switzerland, in the Monte Rosa massif.

From the basket

At the very end of the valley that leads to Zermatt, where Switzerland meets Italy, stands the Monte Rosa massif, a long crest running west to east and bristling with six summits above four thousand metres. The highest of them, the Dufourspitze, reaches 4634 metres: it is the roof of the country, and in the whole of the Alps only the Mont Blanc massif rises higher.

To reach it, the balloon goes up the Gorner Glacier, that great river of ice flowing down towards Zermatt. Above it, two glaciers join: the Monte Rosa Glacier, on the north slope of the peak, and the Grenz Glacier, to the south. Their ice finally melts into a torrent, the Mattervispa, which runs off to the Rhône. Higher still, the peak comes clear, a ridge of rock emerging from the white.

It has not always borne this name. It used to be called simply Höchste Spitze, “the highest point”. In 1863 the Federal Council gave it the name of General Guillaume Henri Dufour, who commanded the federal army and directed the first great topographic map of the country. A fitting return: it is partly thanks to his maps that we know where the summits are.

Barely 130 metres from the peak lies the Grenzgipfel, the high point of the line that separates Switzerland from Italy. So in a gust of wind you can pass over the summit of the country and then glide into Italy, without ever touching the ground.

Sources: Wikipedia, “Pointe Dufour” (in French).

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