Ellen Wallace
Photo: the snow line was rising Monday at noon but fell again by Tuesday morning with snow down to the lakefront. Here, the French Alps and in the distance the snow-capped Jura mountains, viewed from Montreux (click on image to view larger).
One of the most curious things about Switzerland, I thought when I moved here from Paris, was that everyone talked about the snow line. Weather reports referred to it, skiers and hikers watched it carefully, resorts worried over it. I grew up in Iowa, a place with little variation in altitude. Snow happened in winter and it didn’t the rest of the year. I puzzled over the phrase for a long time, until I saw that the line is really just that: if it snows down to 1,000 metres, from a distance there will be a clear line of white above, dark below.
Switzerland’s dramatic changes in altitude are part of the country’s beauty. Altitude is also the determining factor between precipitation as snow or as rain. One of the curious things about Switzerland I’ve learned in my five years as an avid Alpine gardener is that the snow line plays a major role in the health of my plants in spring and autumn. The snow line came down Sunday night and buried my young tulips and newly planted rock cress. That’s good: the mantle of snow will protect them from frost, far more damaging than snow.
GenevaLunch, 8 April 2008.
Filed under: Garden
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