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49-689: Located in the Pennine Alps , the Matter Valley is drained by the Matter Vispa , a tributary of the Rhone . The valley itself ends at Stalden where it meets the Saas Valley . The resulting Visp Valley continues for a few kilometres until it reaches the town of Visp on the young river Rhone. The valley starts between the high summits south of Zermatt ( Monte Rosa , Matterhorn ) on

98-418: A hors catégorie climb. The snow in the pass in winter may be as much as 10 metres deep. The temperature may drop as low as -30 °C. The lake in the pass is frozen for 265 days per year. A summary of weather data for the year 1991-2020 is given below. The pass is well above the tree line. All the wood required for construction and firewood must be hauled in from some distance. On the south-west side of

147-636: A Roman-Celtic word, considering that Celtic tribes owned the entire pass until defeated by the Romans. Livy says that the pass was not named after the Carthaginians but after a mountain god. For well over a century scholars such as the Grimm brothers have made a connection with continental Celtic pen or ben , "head, summit, chief" on an analogy with the Zeus karaios of Hesychius . Two tribes occupied

196-403: A private entrepreneur for the provision of hotel services. The St Bernards were bred large enough to traverse deep snow and to find lost persons by scent. The first evidence that the dogs were in use at the monastery is two paintings dating to 1690 by Salvator Rosa . It is often said that they carried small casks of brandy around their necks (although this is only legend), in the belief that

245-501: A room with good beds already made up. As we came from the warmth of the hall into the cold room we started to shiver and just couldn't get warm, so we didn't get much sleep. My turtle was cold, too, so I took it to bed with me to try to warm it a bit. We arose at five the next morning and were given a very good and generous breakfast before we started our descent of the mountain. The clouds were threatening, black and so heavy that we could see nothing and wished earnestly that we were back onto

294-524: A short note for the chief supply officer of the army. Versions of the story vary, but they all agree that when the young man had turned in the note and had drawn his ample pay for the work, he found that his companion was Napoleon and the latter had given him a house and farm so that he could marry his sweetheart. In the Aosta Valley Napoleon's army slipped by an Austrian garrison at Bard just out of cannon range. The commander related that he

343-474: A wooden keg fastened under his chin. When they locate a victim he is offered the wine to keep him alive while the other dog runs back to the monastery to lead the monks who transport the lost back. Sometimes the lost are no longer alive." Today the tunnel and modern technology have made rescue operations at the pass mainly unnecessary. The dogs were put up for sale in 2004 because of the high cost of maintenance and were promptly bought by two foundations created for

392-731: Is drained by the rivers Dora Baltea , Sesia and Toce , tributaries of the Po . The Swiss side is drained by the Rhône . The Great St Bernard Tunnel , under the Great St Bernard Pass , leads from Martigny, Switzerland to Aosta . The main chain ( watershed between the Mediterranean Sea and the Adriatic Sea ) runs from west to east on the border between Italy (south) and Switzerland (north). From Mont Vélan ,

441-478: Is mainly historical and recreational. Straddling the highest point of the road, the Great St Bernard Hospice was founded in 1049. The hospice later became famous for its use of St. Bernard dogs in rescue operations. The Italian side of the area includes several facilities as well. Between them is the small Great St Bernard Lake . The Great St Bernard Pass is located near the western end of

490-472: Is prolific and the rocks are lichen -covered. A hospice for travellers was founded in 1049 by Saint Bernard of Menthon and came to be named after him in the 16th century, along with the pass. It was not the first hospice in the pass. Buildings were probably there since the Roman times, but the region was not secure and they were destroyed many times. The first concern of the founder of the current monastery

539-617: The Aosta Valley region of Italy. From Martigny Route 9 descends to Lausanne and from Aosta Route A5 descends to Torino . From the north, in Switzerland, the route to the pass follows the lower part of the river Drance above Martigny, then into the sparsely populated Val d'Entremont (lit.: "valley between mountain") through which the Drance d'Entremont flows. After having passed the last inhabited locality, Bourg-Saint-Pierre ,

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588-758: The Bronze Age and surviving traces of a Roman road . In 1800, Napoleon 's army used the pass to enter Italy, an event depicted in Jacques-Louis David 's Napoleon at the Saint-Bernard Pass and Paul Delaroche 's Bonaparte Crossing the Alps , both notable oil paintings. Having been bypassed by easier and more practical routes, particularly the Great St Bernard Tunnel , a road tunnel which opened in 1964, its value today

637-596: The Regional park of Binn valley (15,891 ha - Valais , CH), have been established on both sides of the main water divide . Great St. Bernard Pass The Great St Bernard Pass ( French : Col du Grand St-Bernard , Italian : Colle del Gran San Bernardo , German : Grosser Sankt Bernhard ; Romansh : Pass del Grond Son Bernard ) is the third highest road pass in Switzerland , at an elevation of 2,469 m (8,100 ft). It connects Martigny in

686-883: The Valais Alps (which are just the Northern Swiss part of the Pennine Alps), are a mountain range in the western part of the Alps . They are located in Italy (the Aosta Valley and Piedmont ) and Switzerland ( Valais ). The Pennine Alps are amongst the three highest major subranges of the Alps, together with the Bernese Alps and the Graian Alps that include the Mont Blanc massif . The Italian side

735-558: The Valais Alps , the next pass to the west, Col Ferret , marking the transition with the Mont Blanc massif . In that area, between Mont Dolent and Mont Vélan , the main crest of the Alps barely reaches 3,000 metres, unlike in the much higher section of the Valais Alps east of Mont Vélan and Grand Combin . Therefore, the Great St Bernard Pass is one of the only two road axis connecting Valais with northern Italy,

784-494: The canton of Valais in Switzerland with Aosta in the region Aosta Valley in Italy . It is the lowest pass lying on the ridge between the two highest mountains of the Alps , Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa . It is located on the main watershed that separates the basin of the Rhône from that of the Po . Great St Bernard is one of the most ancient passes through the Western Alps , with evidence of use as far back as

833-490: The Alps between Italy and Switzerland. We came into a large hall where several other wanderers were seated. The monks came to shake hands with us and bid us welcome. A doctor – also a monk – asked if we had suffered any mishap coming up. The ones that had gotten hurt were treated and taken care of. They had an apothecary there also to administer to any one needing such. Another monk gave us a bowl with hot bouillon mixed with wine to warm us. We sat on wooden benches and talked with

882-480: The army went over the pass single-file, 6000 men per day. Bands played martial music along the route, with drum rolls at especially difficult places to alert the men. At the top the monks handed each man two glasses of wine and a slice of rye with cheese as they filed by (courtesy of the French army). Accounts of the amounts expended vary. On the other side the snow became so packed that the men slid down sitting. Napoleon

931-730: The border with Italy . The upper side is glaciated, the second largest glacier of the Alps , the Gorner Glacier lies at the foot of Monte Rosa (4,634 m), while the Zmutt Glacier lies at the foot of the Matterhorn (4,478 m). Around the village of Randa are located the Weisshorn (4,505 m) and the Dom (4,545 m). The difference of height between the talweg and the summits on both side reaches over 3 km. The total length of

980-837: The east again, then smoothly to the southeast at La Clusaz ( Gignod ). Here the river enters the Buthier river in the lower end of the Valpelline valley and turns south again on which end finally the river flows into the Dora Baltea near the Pont de Pierre in Aosta . The route here in the main valley of the Val d'Aoste becomes part of the A5 motorway connecting the Mont Blanc Tunnel to

1029-706: The end of the nineteenth century the upper end of the valley is connected by rail from Visp ( Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn ). If the main road connect Zermatt from Visp, it cannot be used between Täsch and Zermatt, the latter being completely car-free. Since 1930 the valley is directly connected to St. Moritz by the Glacier Express panoramic train. 46°05′N 7°48′E  /  46.083°N 7.800°E  / 46.083; 7.800 Pennine Alps The Pennine Alps ( French : Alpes Pennines , German : Walliser Alpen , Italian : Alpi Pennine , Latin : Alpes Poeninae ), sometimes referred to as

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1078-451: The expectation of moving into the pass on the next day. At that time the Romans found the heights over the trail occupied by three hostile Gallic tribes. The Romans won a local victory by a daring foray from the camp but Galba judged he could not take the pass and departed. Augustus succeeded where his adoptive father failed and the pass became Roman. Augustus placed a large castra stativa and colony, Augusta Praetoria Salassorum , below

1127-476: The first high summit east of St Bernard Pass , the chain rarely goes below 3000 metres and contains many four-thousanders such as Matterhorn or Monte Rosa . The valleys are quite similar on both side of the border, being generally oriented perpendicular to the main chain and descending progressively into the Rhône Valley on the north and the Aosta Valley on the south. Unlike many other mountain ranges,

1176-453: The green earth once more. It was hard work going up the mountain but worse going down. We sank into the snow, several times so deep that we had all we could do to get up again. I had expected to see some of the dogs, but we were following the wooden markers and the dogs are trained to go afield and search for the ones that missed the markers. It is impossible to find the way over the mountain without help. The large dogs searched in pairs - one has

1225-671: The higher peaks are often located outside the main chain and found themselves between the northern valleys ( Grand Combin , Weisshorn , Mischabel , Weissmies ). The chief peaks of the Pennine Alps are: Main glaciers : The chief passes of the Pennine Alps are: Some regional nature parks , like the Parco Naturale Alta Valsesia (6,511 ha - Piedmont , IT), the Riserva Naturale Mont Mars (390 ha - Aosta Valley , IT) and

1274-426: The invasion of Italy of 390 BC. The classical authors first mentioning the pass in that or other contexts lived the 1st century BC under the early Roman empire . They were calling the pass and the mountains Poeninus or Poenini , "Punic", an apparent reference to Hannibal 's crossing. He did not cross there, however. On the presumption that the name was falsely altered by analogy, it can be reconstructed to *peninus,

1323-412: The liquor had medicinal properties. A description of an overnight stay at the monastery in 1857 was given by Theodore Nielsen, a Danish kleinsmith journeyman, in his memoirs: "In the evening we reached the monastery of St Bernard on the top of the mountain. Enormous sums of money were expended to build these cloisters that were made of stonework and were placed there to give sustenance to travellers on

1372-436: The march secretly by assembling men in small units below the pass, establishing supply dumps along the lower part of their route, and hiring artisans to set up shop along it as well. On May 15 an advance unit went over the pass to take Aosta , after which hospitals were set up at Martigny and Aosta. At Martigny the army assembled and received rations for three days. All the equipment - carriages, artillery, arms and ammunition -

1421-500: The other axis being the Simplon Pass . The pass runs northwest–southeast through the Valais Alps (formerly known as the Pennine Alps after the Roman name for the pass, poeninus mons or summus poeninus ) at a maximum elevation of 2,469 m (8,100 ft). The road running through the pass, highway E27 in both Italy and Switzerland , joins Martigny on the upper Rhône in the canton of Valais , Switzerland, to Aosta in

1470-601: The outside of the monastery buildings to allow some integrity of the grounds. The old road may still be seen, above the paved road. The hospice occupies two buildings, of 1560 and 1898 ( picture, above ). The Congregation of Canons of the Great Saint Bernard (the monks) also owns the Hôtel de l'Hospice du Grand-St-Bernard, a four-storey building made of grey stone (built in 1899) on the Italian side, which it leases to

1519-482: The pass is a small tarn , the Great St Bernard Lake , which captures melt water and does not support fish, even though attempts have been made to stock it. In past years the tarn has not always thawed completely in summer. Alpine flowers are abundant in the vicinity: Gentiana clusii , Ranunculus glacialis , Dryas octopetala , Forget-me-not , Saxifraga oppositifolia among many hundreds more. Moss

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1568-566: The pass with 40,000 men and ⅓ of their heavy artillery, sending another 20,000 over three other passes as a diversion, intending to strike the Austrian rear. The panicked Austrians were unable to assemble fast enough to meet the French en masse but rather in a piecemeal way in June 1800, and so were defeated first at the Battle of Montebello and then at the Battle of Marengo . Napoleon prepared for

1617-491: The pass, after having passed the Combe des Morts. On the south side the route descends a few metres and reaches the shores of the lake before its enters Italy. Then the route follows the steep slopes of the upper part of the torrent du Grand Saint-Bernard to the south, then turns to the east and follows the river in a bend to the south, where the mountain river enters the torrent Artanavaz near Saint-Rhémy-en-Bosses and turns to

1666-419: The pass, which became Aosta (contraction of Augusta). Its ruins are a historic attraction there. By 43 AD under the emperor Claudius a good Roman road through the pass was completed with a mansio at the top and a temple to Jupiter Poeninus , resulting in the name Mons Jovis in late antiquity, Monte Jove in the early Italian period and Mont Joux in the French period, a synonym for the pass. The site of

1715-416: The peaks of Grande Chenalette at 2,889 m (9,478 ft) and Mont Mort at 2,867 m (9,406 ft). Slightly to the west is Pointe de Drône at 2,949 m (9,675 ft), the highest peak. Between it and the pass is Petite Chenalette at 2,885 m (9,465 ft). The Tour de France has visited the pass five times. It was climbed four times as a 1st category climb, and one time, in 2009, as

1764-461: The purpose: Fondation Barry du Grand Saint Bernard (major contributor Christine Cerletti-Sarasin) and Fondation Bernard et Caroline de Watteville. Barry bought the kennels and the facilities in Martigny and continues to support and breed the dogs (three or four dozen). One condition of the sale is that they be brought to the monastery for the summer. Travellers are likely to see them romping around

1813-405: The rest of the people. There was a large stove and the place was lovely and warm. Some of the large St Bernard dogs were about and when we sat down came over to give our hands a lick just as if they wanted to say Hello too. At dinnertime we were given a piece of meat on a wooden trivet, bread and wine. The bread was so hard that it seemed we tried to bite into a piece of wood. Later we were shown into

1862-453: The road runs above a large reservoir, the Lac des Toules . At the location of Bourg-Saint-Bernard, the Great St Bernard Tunnel (and the main road) plunges through the mountains at a 1,915 m (6,283 ft) level, reducing, since the tunnel's opening in 1964, the commercial relevance of the road over the pass. The summit section of the road consists of hairpin turns before it reaches the top of

1911-486: The site of the temple roughly date the upper limit of Roman control of the pass. The youngest date to the reign of Theodosius II (1st half of the 5th century). These and other artifacts are stored in the monastery museum. Fragments of the marble temple, some with inscriptions, have been incorporated into many structures of the village of Bourg-Saint-Pierre on the Swiss side of the pass. The Roman milestone for mile XXIIII

1960-510: The slopes. The de Watteville Foundation keeps several dogs in kennels adjunct to its Musée. Both have agreed to work together and others have joined the partnership. The monastery currently houses a handful of monks on a permanent basis, and serves as a spiritual centre for others on retreat. The pass first appears in history as the route taken by the Celtic tribes of the Boii and Lingones in

2009-475: The temple is known as the Plan de Jupiter, located on a knoll on the Italian side of the pass. A cross was placed there in 1816 bearing the inscription Deo optimo maximo , "to the best and greatest god." The bronze statue of St Bernard on a pedestal above the road on the Italian side, across a small valley from the cross, was constructed in 1905 on the site of the Roman mansio . The coins and votive tablets found at

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2058-410: The valley is about 40 km. Zermatt (1,600 m), with approx. 5,600 inhabitants, is the largest and highest town in the valley. St. Niklaus follows with 2,400 inhabitants. Between them are located the smaller villages of Täsch and Randa . The villages of Grächen , Embd and Törbel are located above the valley. Stalden , located at the end of the valley, is the lowest village (800 m). Since

2107-580: The valleys on either side of the pass on a permanent basis: the Veragri on the Swiss side and the Salassi on the Italian side. Julius Caesar sent an expedition under his best commander, Servius Galba , from Gaul in 57 BC to seize the pass, hoping to obtain a shorter route between Italy and Gaul than the contemporaneous coastal route. Galba was deceived by the Veragri into making camp near Martigny with

2156-474: The west and the upper Po Basin to the southeast. A reduction of utility began after the construction of the Simplon Tunnel , strictly a railway tunnel, 100 km (62 mi) to the east in 1905. The much smaller historic road winding over the pass itself, which lies a few hundred metres from the Swiss border with Italy , is only passable June to September. The pass at narrowest point runs between

2205-596: Was also brought to the center of the settlement from the top of the pass. The pass had entered history with the Gallic invasion of 390 BC. The last Gallic invasion over it occurred in May, 1800, under the direction of the 30-year-old First Consul of the French Republic , Napoleon Bonaparte . An Austrian army of 140,000 men had laid siege to French-occupied Genoa on the west coast of northern Italy. Napoleon traversed

2254-480: Was astonished to watch an army of 40,000 men in full equipment go marching past from the direction of the heights. The Dorrit family crossed from France into Italy in Book Two: Riches of the novel Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens . They meet the newly-wed Gowans and the gentlemanly murderer Rigaud, now called Blandois, at the inn after climbing up on mules. The novel was published in 1857, but set in

2303-413: Was disassembled and divided into packs of 60-70 pounds for the men to carry. The cannons were to be dragged up over the snow in hollowed-out pine half-logs by mules, and then when the mules died or were exhausted, by 100 soldiers and hired men each. Napoleon offered liberal monetary rewards to soldiers and laborers who could perform difficult portages in a timely fashion. Over several days at the end of May

2352-408: Was the last man over, sliding also. The good weather held for the entire crossing, otherwise the crossing could have easily become disastrous. On the way up Napoleon had discussed affairs of the heart with his young guide and mule driver, Pierre Nicholas Dorsaz , who did not know his identity. Offered a reward at the top, Dorsaz asked for the mule on which Napoleon was riding. He received the mule and

2401-418: Was to clear the region of bandits and keep the pass safe for travellers, the role of rescuers developing naturally. The hospice later became famous for its use of St Bernard dogs in rescue operations. Pope Pius XI confirmed Bernard as patron saint of the Alps in 1923. The hospice straddles the highest point of the road, which is in Switzerland. Today the modern road for through traffic has been routed around

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