Hello everyone! I am trying to upload specific photos, but not all my photos are revealing themselves on this computer! What I will most likely do is post more pictures or video when I get back ;)

This mountain site is the Simplon Pass. We took a bus up to this place yesterday, so we were right beside the mountains! The stone monument you see in the background is a giant Eagle (we also took pictures standing right beside it). It was quite a site standing above the tree line and looking out at the mountains with the fresh-laden snow caressing their tops...

One thing I have desired to do while I am here is to better understand the perplexing dichotomy between the "horrific mountain" and the "beautiful" mountain. Surprisingly, the Alps were not always perceived as enchanting and beautiful. In the Renaissance and medieval mindset and up until the Victorian Age/Romantic period, mountains were perceived as dangerous, cold, and as a barren place dwelled by carnivorous wolves and mischievous sprite-like spirits. As Andrew Beattie remarks, the mountains were "agriculturally barren and aesthetically repellent [. . .]" (116). He even goes so far as to say they were seen as "an unfortunate blemish on the face of the earth (!)" (Beattie 116). The mountains were, certainly, not willingly climbed like today (with the exception of chamois hunters, smugglers, etc. traveling up there at that time). A new perception in the view of the Alps began with Conrad Gesner in 1492. He went searching for a dragon that supposedly dwelled on the mountain. On his return home, consequently, he wrote in quite a different tone about them. He wrote about the clear mountain water, beautiful mountain pastures, and the lovely fragrance of the wild flowers. This was very new. Other writers did follow his lead, but it was, truly, a very gradual change. It was not until the The Victorian Age (19th century) that the mountains were no longer perceived with "unmitigated horror" as Leslie Stephen, a biographer of the Victorian period expressed (Beattie 118). Perceptions of the Alps, then, have irreversibly changed. There is still an interesting duplicit reality surrounding the mountains, however!.

Regarding my own perceptions of the Alps, I have seen only their loveliness, but that's also probably because I am seeing them from below. This remained true for the Romantic poets (18-19th century) who wrote about the mountains as well (William Wordsworth and Lord Byron, for example). Some of the poets captured their sublimity (their being so much larger than man and so beautiful, leaving him with a overwhelming sense of his own smallness coupled with an inutterable feeling of Awe). They wrote about the beauty of the mountains and the "innocence and congeniality" of the Swiss peasants, but they did so without a full understanding of the actuality of things. They neglected the hardship those who lived on the mountains endured, and the prevalent "every man for himself" attitude that permeated the hearts of so many individuals who worked to keep themselves alive and warm on the mountains. This reality was explained best by Mrs. Middleman, a woman who grew up on them.

With these different yet simultaneous truths of the mountains--their beauty yet, perhaps, also their horrific potential intrigues me. I wonder if I will see anything I cold classify as "horrific." We are expected to hike this Thursday. Perhaps I will be able to tell you if I discover anything along these lines. This is not to say that I want to (because I don't!), but it does seem like a really interesting contrast. Let us see. Ciao! :)