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Finsteraarhorn

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Summit · cantons of Valais and Bern · 4274 m

Roof of the Bernese Oberland, standing alone at the heart of the largest glacier in the Alps.

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Nothing in the Bernese Alps rises above the Finsteraarhorn, and yet almost nobody sees it from the valleys: it hides in the heart of the glaciers, behind the walls of the Eiger and the Mönch. To see it whole you need a long walk… or a balloon. Rise above the ridges and it appears all at once, alone in a white desert.

From the south-east you see a slender pyramid whose flanks steepen as they near the point. On the north-east side, a broad steep wall, cut by a powerful spur, plunges towards the Finsteraar Glacier. On the south-west side the face breaks into snowy steps, friendlier, over the Fiescherfirn. Around it there is nothing but rivers of ice: the Aletsch Glacier to the south-west, and eastwards the ones that give birth to the Aar.

Its name tells its colour. “Finsteraarhorn” means, roughly, the dark horn of the Aar. The mountain is made of amphibolite, a hard, almost black rock with green glints, which gives it its sharp outline and its sombre tint among the snow.

At 4274 metres, it is the high point of the whole canton of Bern. At the summit a cross bears a Latin inscription, “Soli Deo Honor”. From here, on a clear day, the whole range of Valais four-thousand-metre peaks stretches away to the south, on the other side of the Rhône valley. Stay a while above this silence before letting the wind carry you back to the inhabited valleys.

Sources: Wikipedia, “Finsteraarhorn” (in French).

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