Farms dot the mountainside in Lauterbrunnen. Photograph © Craig Aurness/CORBIS

The Alps
By James Salter

I once spent a night sleeping, more or less, beneath a huge boulder that formed a kind of cave in the mountains above Chamonix. It was at the base of the Dru, a legendary towering granite spire 1,500 feet high. I was alone, paying tribute. Sometime after midnight there was a distant sound: thunder. Slowly it grew closer and soon a tremendous storm began. The very rock above me seemed to tremble in the thunderclaps. I almost imagined it would be split by a bolt of lightning to reveal me, insectlike, at the foot of a towering, angry mountain god. The storm finally passed, but I lay awake until dawn. The Alps are famous for swift changes of weather. In the middle of summer climbers can be caught in blizzards, occasionally with tragic results.

It was in Chamonix that I first climbed, and I learned to ski in St. Anton, famed places both, one in France and the other in Austria but each in The Alps, the great upper story of Europe. From the mountains, in all directions, flow mighty rivers, the Rhine, Rhône, Po, and Danube; a necklace of immortal cities lies in the surrounding foothills and plains: Nice, Grenoble, Geneva, Turin, Milan, Munich, Salzburg, Vienna, and, stretching a bit, Venice.You are simultaneously in the center of civilization and the most majestic, thrilling wilderness.

It is essentially a geologic wilderness: fierce, jagged peaks in parallel series. The timberline is relatively low; above the trees typically are meadows that for centuries have been used for summer grazing. There are few wild animals.

The civilization of this rugged area is found in the many towns and mountain inns and huts. In The Alps, as in most of Europe, you eat well—it is part of the culture. Bread is still handmade, the butter is fresh, many things come from farms nearby.

Much has changed in this tumultuous century—the population has flowed into cities, with their hectic and somewhat artificial life—removed from the forests, streams, silence. But like a great island the mountains stand, safe from development, useless in the most noble sense.

These are The Alps. High up, near the sky. Walking a path far from anything made by man, the sudden sound one hears is that of a cowbell. A farmer's small herd, here in the clouds, is just beyond the bend.

The information in this story was accurate at the time it was published, but we suggest you confirm all details before making travel plans.