The 10 most dominant Mountains of the Alps: #10 – Aletschhorn

Over the last two years I realized a project to capture the ten most dominant mountains of the Alps. The map below shows were they are, ranging about 300 km from the Barre des Écrins in the south west to the Piz Bernina in north east.

So you may ask: Dominance? Why not height? Well, from a photography point of view it is much more interesting to go for dominance, as this is a geological measure that tells something about how a mountain sticks out of its surrounding. All the shots are intended to show exactly that. Although I couldn’t resist to also add a few summit shots here and there …

The definition of dominance is as follows: “The topographic isolation of a summit is the minimum great-circle distance to a point of equal elevation, representing a radius of dominance in which the peak is the highest point.” (Source: Wikipedia)

Here now the list:

1. Mont Blanc (Dominance 2’812 km, Height 4’810 m)
2. Piz Bernina (Dominance 138 km, Height 4’049 m)
3. Barre des Écrins (Dominance 107 km, Height 4’102 m)
4. Dufourspitze (Dominance 78 km, Height 4’634 m)
5. Finsteraarhorn (Dominance 52 km, Height 4’274 m)
6. Gran Paradiso (Dominance 45 km, Height 4’061 m)
7. Combin de Grafeneire (Dominance 26.5 km, Height 4’314 m)
8. Dom (Dominance 17 km, Height 4’545 m)
9. Matterhorn (Dominance 14 km, Height 4’478 m)
10. Aletschhorn (Dominance 13.5 km, Height 4’193 m)

Ok, now let’s go backwards and start with #10: the Aletschhorn (Dominance 13.5 km – Height 4’193 m)

The Aletschhorn belongs to the Bernese Alps. Both shots are taken from the Eggishorn which can be reached from the Rhone Valley and the Fiescheralp. In the front one can see the Great Aletsch Glacier. The panoramic shot emphasizes that this mountain is somehow surrounded by this glacier, which is the biggest of the Alps. BTW: The Aletschhorn ranks 14 by height.

Over the coming weeks I’ll publish the shots of the remaining mountains.