Valais Travel Guide

This is the broad upper valley of the mighty Rhône, a river born in the heights above Gletsch (Glacier), channeled into a broad westward stream between the Bernese and the Valaisan Alps, lost in the depths of Lac Léman (Lake Geneva), and then diverted into France, where it ultimately dissolves in the marshes of the Camargue. The region is still wild, remote, beautiful, and slightly unruly. Its raccards (typical little Valaisan barns balanced on stone disks and columns to keep mice out of winter food stores) are romantically tumbledown, its highest slopes peopled by nimble farmers who live at vertiginous angles. More than 500 km (310 mi) of mountains and glaciers span the Bietschhorn, Aletsch, and Jungfrau summits. In 2001, UNESCO named this area a World Heritage Site, joining such other natural wonders as the Galapagos Islands, Yellowstone National Park, and the Serengeti Desert.