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After the crowds leave: when you can be alone in the Alps

What’s it like to be in the mountains when the last skiers have gone home and summer hikers have yet to arrive? Photographer Simon Walther travelled through the Alps between the main holiday seasons to find out.

Each winter, millions of holidaymakers from across Europe flock to the Swiss, French, Austrian or Italian Alps for a week of skiing.

But by Easter, the last have gone, and with them the thousands upon thousands of employees who operate the ski lifts and wait the tables, abandoning the slopes, hotels, restaurants and mountain roads. The snow begins to melt away exposing grass and rock, and the power for the ski infrastructure, from chairlifts to snowmaking guns, is turned off.

It’s into this deserted landscape that photographer Simon Walther ventured. He journeyed across the Swiss Alps between March and June over a three-year period. In his book, ZwischenSaisonExternal link (between seasons), he reveals a side of the Alps seldom seen by tourists.

It’s Walther’s second photo book of alpine landscapes. His first was a collectionExternal link of mirror images, depicting mountains and their reflections in lakes.


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SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR