Album The Alps from Jon Searles

View from the Glacier Express, Picture 14, Unknown location, Goms District, Switzerland, 2011

nobody@ipernity.com (Jon Searles) — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 12:05:23 +0000

Jon Searles has posted:

Here's another shot of a mountain in the clouds. I have no idea which one it is.

View from the Glacier Express, Picture 10, Unknown location, Goms District, Switzerland, 2011

nobody@ipernity.com (Jon Searles) — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 12:05:21 +0000

Jon Searles has posted:

Here's another shot that I got of the train.

View from the Glacier Express, Picture 7, Unknown location, Goms District, Switzerland, 2011

nobody@ipernity.com (Jon Searles) — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 12:05:20 +0000

Jon Searles has posted:

Being in the mountains on a day in which there was sporadic rain, we passed through a number of clouds. Some of these, of course, were not possible to photograph as they were simply grey haze, but this one was better.

Fiesch, Goms District, Switzerland, 2011

nobody@ipernity.com (Jon Searles) — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 12:05:18 +0000

Jon Searles has posted:

This was one of the few towns on the Glacier Express route that I was able to identify. The reason was that we passed the station and I got a picture of the sign (the photo was a bit blurred to show here).

View from the Glacier Express, Picture 4, Unknown location, Visp District, Switzerland, 2011

nobody@ipernity.com (Jon Searles) — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 08:30:42 +0000

Jon Searles has posted:

Actually, the "Visp District" is a bit of a guess, since film shots don't have EXIF data. This was one of the better shots that I got, showing the train on a curve. The Glacier Express is, of course, designed for photography, but a problem that I had for the whole trip was that the glass reflected too much, as you can sort of see on the right here. The previous shot of the bridges has a bit of a reflection in the middle, too, but I posted both of these anyway.

Viaducts (Bridges?) next to the Glacier Express Route, Near Zermatt, Visp District, Switzerland, 2011

nobody@ipernity.com (Jon Searles) — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 08:30:39 +0000

Jon Searles has posted:

I think these are technically viaducts, given the arches, although at least the one in the foreground looks like it could be for a road. I really know nothing about these, other than that I took this photo from the Glacier Express shortly after leaving Zermatt.

The Matterhorn, Picture 4, Zermatt, Visp District, Switzerland, 2011

nobody@ipernity.com (Jon Searles) — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 07:32:37 +0000

Jon Searles has posted:

This was another photo I took. As with most very high mountains, the Matterhorn is harder to photograph as you get closer to it, so the later photos didn't come out as well.

The Matterhorn, Picture 3, Zermatt, Visp District, Switzerland, 2011

nobody@ipernity.com (Jon Searles) — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 07:32:36 +0000

Jon Searles has posted:

The Matterhorn may be my favorite mountain. To me, it looks more extreme, dramatic, and unique than any other. It's so steep that it's cartoonish, yet otherwise its proportions are, at least from this angle, almost as perfect as they could be. In fact, if it weren't for those kinks on the side, making it resemble a shark's tooth, it wouldn't be so distinctive anyway. On this trip, I wasn't prepared to summit it (The Matterhorn is 4,478 meters, or 14,690 feet high, and the steepness of some of the faces, particularly the summit, is obvious here.), so I began hiking up it, but gave myself (and my Mom) a time limit of about a half hour. This is one of the photos I took.

View from BVZ Train, Picture 19, Cropped Version, Visp District, Switzerland, 2011

nobody@ipernity.com (Jon Searles) — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 14:54:34 +0000

Jon Searles has posted:

This shot portrays a rockier part of the area we were in.

View from BVZ Train, Picture 18, Edited Version, Visp District, Switzerland, 2011

nobody@ipernity.com (Jon Searles) — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 14:54:33 +0000

Jon Searles has posted:

This is one of my better shots of the train, which was an EMU like most of what the BVZ runs.

View from BVZ Train, Picture 14, Visp District, Switzerland, 2011

nobody@ipernity.com (Jon Searles) — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 14:54:31 +0000

Jon Searles has posted:

I'm not certain, but this may in fact be one of the less-known faces of the Matterhorn (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). I make this assumption based on the fact that we were approaching Zermatt by this point.

Rack Railway Track on the BVZ, Picture 2, Visp District, Switzerland, 2011

nobody@ipernity.com (Jon Searles) — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 14:54:30 +0000

Jon Searles has posted:

Here's a look at one of the more moderate grades in the world to use a cog. I took this seconds after Picture 1.

Rack Railway Track on the BVZ, Picture 1, Visp District, Switzerland, 2011

nobody@ipernity.com (Jon Searles) — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 14:54:28 +0000

Jon Searles has posted:

Many cog (or rack) railways in Switzerland, and for that matter the world, only use cog technology for banking, running conventionally. The BVZ Zermatt-Bahn is one such railway.

View from BVZ Narrow-Gauge Train Picture 9, Edit 2, Kalpetran-Embd, Frutigen-Niedersimmental, Switzerland, 2011

nobody@ipernity.com (Jon Searles) — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 11:13:48 +0000

Jon Searles has posted:

I'm taking the location from the sign on that building, which may be the station, although I can't really tell. If it's not, the station would have to be behind it, as you can see the platform clearly.

View from BVZ Narrow-Gauge Train, Picture 5, Edited Version, Unknown location, Frutigen-Niedersimmental, Switzerland, 2011

nobody@ipernity.com (Jon Searles) — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 11:13:46 +0000

Jon Searles has posted:

This appears to be the same mountain, so this location would also be roughly the same.

View from BVZ Narrow-Gauge Train, Picture 4, Edit 2, Unknown location, , Frutigen-Niedersimmental, Switzerland, 2011

nobody@ipernity.com (Jon Searles) — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 11:13:45 +0000

Jon Searles has posted:

Judging by the other photos that I have, it doesn't look like I had any good photos between Spiez and Visp on the SBB, and I can tell from the shape of the train that this was the narrow (1-metre) gauge BVZ that would take us the rest of the way to Zermatt. If someone could identify that mountain, it might help verify the location. We were headed to Zermatt, ultimately, but I'm assuming this was too early in the trip for it to be the Matterhorn. It isn't steep enough anyway.

BOB Narrow-Gauge, Picture 7, Edited Version, Interlaken, Interlaken-Oberhasli, Switzerland, 2011

nobody@ipernity.com (Jon Searles) — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 11:13:38 +0000

Jon Searles has posted:

This is Interlaken, where we ended up changing for the SBB to Spiez.

BOB Narrow-Gauge Train, Picture 6, Edit 2, Near Grindelwald, Interlaken-Oberhasli, Switzerland, 2011

nobody@ipernity.com (Jon Searles) — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 11:13:36 +0000

Jon Searles has posted:

This is another of the shots I took along the way. I don't know the name of the river.

BOB Narrow-Gauge Train, Picture 2, Edit 2, Near Grindelwald, Interlaken-Oberhasli, Switzerland, 2011

nobody@ipernity.com (Jon Searles) — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 11:13:34 +0000

Jon Searles has posted:

This is on the train out of Grindelwald, which is run by the Berner Oberland Bahn narrow-gauge railway, which connects to the BLS and the SBB in Spiez and Interlaken.

Grindelwald, Picture 2, Edited Version, Interlaken-Oberhasli, Switzerland, 2011

nobody@ipernity.com (Jon Searles) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:58:58 +0000

Jon Searles has posted:

Also speaking of unknown names, I don't know the names of these mountains, so any help in identifying them would be welcome. As always, the view was hard to match anywhere.