High-living Swiss plan to make a mountain
The Klein Matterhorn (photograph: Johanna Huber)
If Heidi were alive today, the likelihood is she would no longer be skipping in the mountains with grandpa’s goats, but taking a lift to a cabin-pressurised viewing tower and conference centre in the Alps.
The once untouchable Alps are being turned into a huge and haughty playground for the rich, featuring luxury tower blocks, pyramids, and revolving hotels, as Switzerland’s cantons seek to produce ever bigger and better tourist attractions in a bid to outdo each other.
The latest project involves “stocking up” the Klein Matterhorn. Already home to the highest cable car in Europe, the smaller neighbour to the Matterhorn is soon to be topped with a 117 metre steel and glass pyramid which will take it to a height of 4,000 metres.
A so-called “four-thousander” is considered by alpinists to be the magic height for a mountain - because it marks a level most mere mortals will never reach. There are currently 76 of them in the Alps. Klein Matterhorn is set to become the 77th and tourist chiefs hope it will lure the visitors attracted by the hitherto distant prospect of conquering a four-thousander - albeit a manmade one.
Read full article (Guardian, September 20, 2007)
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