Blog posts about Wallis / Valais at Permanent Tourist

2019 was my second year with a drone, and I continued to experiment with the possibilities and travel to places with the specific aim of photographing them from the air.

Family playing on the glacial run-off sands at the Moiry glacier

A family came to enjoy the landscape and ended up drawing patterns in the sand.

A time-lapse sequence of the journey between Goppenstein and Kandersteg through the Lötschberg tunnel.

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Time-lapse video of the chairlift ride from Riederalp to Hohfluh in Swiss canton Wallis.

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The rubbish collection service at Bettmeralp – a car-free village in the mountains of upper canton Valais – must be unique in the world. In the absence of any road connection to the village, a 7.5-tonne lorry is carried up and down the mountain by cable-car.

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Time-lapse video of the cable-car ride from Betten to Bettmeralp in Swiss canton Wallis.

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Itching to visit the historic Hörnlihütte in Zermatt.

Before the proper snow arrived at the start of this year’s winter season, we visited Zermatt and visited the famous, much-photographed view of the Matterhorn from Riffelsee.

The valley at Zermatt is surrounded by nearly three dozen peaks with summits higher than 4,000 metres above sea level. The Breithorn is well-known as the “easiest” to ascend: although easiness is, of course, a matter of reference. The number of tiny, ant-like climbers on the slopes leading from the Breithorn Plateau was quite amazing, when […]

Beautiful time lapse sequences from canton Wallis (Valais) by filmmaker Christian Mülhauser.

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Fast anderthalb Stunden in Begleitung der «Rotbiene»: der Rettungsdienst von Air Zermatt rund ums Matterhorn. Wenn ich mit 28 mit mehr Geld im Konto in die Schweiz gekommen wäre, wäre ich Helikopterpilot geworden. Weil meine Geschichte diesen Weg nicht folgte, muss ich mich mit ein paar Touristenflüge pro Jahrzehnt und das Zuschauen von solchen Dokumentarfilmen zurecht finden.

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Attempting to get away from baking temperatures, we headed for the mountains and a hike across summer snow fields to the Gries glacier.

High on the mountainside, near Leuk in the Rhône valley between Brig and Sion, stands the Brentjong satellite earth station. It has been an intercontinental communications hub, via a range of satellites under its control above the Atlantic and Indian oceans, since 1974.

A wonderful time-lapse sequence from the southern borders with Italy, ranging from the Nufenen Pass to Zermatt and the Matterhorn. Film maker Christian Mülhauser writes: Through fog, rain, snow and even wind gusts of up to 120 km/h I am happy to have completed this project. Mountains of Valais is by far my most time […]

For six weeks in the summer every year, young children under the watchful eye of a more experienced adult lead the local half brown, half white goats through the streets of Zermatt twice a day.

Zermatt is one of the Swiss destinations most well-known outside Switzerland, thanks mainly to its proximity to the Matterhorn, probably the most famous mountain in the country.

The inevitably named High Bridge near Leuk in the upper reaches of canton Wallis in Switzerland; so named because of the depth of the gorge beneath it.

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Jo learned to ski in Scotland when she was younger. After living here for several years now, she decided that it was about time to give cross-country skiing another try and give me my first shot at trying, as I’m not keen on regular skiing and had never tried cross-country before.