2025-09-19 Arolla
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We drove nearly two hours to get down from our side of the Vallais and
up the other side, into the Val d’Hérens, to Arolla. I hate cars so
it was not a great experience, but it was nice to be there. With my
father in law, hiking was out of the question but we still saw some
beautiful mountains.

A balcony full of geraniums and other flowers, the edge of some grass,
the edge of a pine tree forest and then a mountain-wall of treeless
dry stone reaching towards the sky. Pink flowers in the foreground
and the same mountains in the background, steep, with traces of stone
fall running down like grey trails of tears. A tiny moor behind the
hotel between tall trees. An older man with a baseball cap is
following me while a woman in the back is turning the other way,
taking pictures. Back in Arolla, looking from a parking lot towards
the Pigne d’Arolla, a fearsome mountain with a glacier at the top.
Apparently a mere thirty or forty years ago it reached all the way
down. We went for a walk along La Borgne d’Arolla towards the
mountain. After a bit the trees are fewer and the asphalt road comes
to and. This is where the more difficult hiking trips start.

We learned that the pump-station at the end is part of the network
redirecting various creeks into the Grande Dixence Dam.

We went for a short walk after dinner after we had come back home.

The sky is dark overhead but the colours of sunset still hang in the
west.

#Valais #Pictures #Mountains