Valley pass (narrow valley)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The valley pass , also known as bottleneck , describes a bottleneck in the terrain that requires special measures to open up traffic. It is not a geographically defined type of terrain . Valley passes are either so narrow that there is only room for the running water or a lake in the area of ​​the valley floor, or historically there are other non-traversable topographies that require a bypass, such as swamp areas in the valley floor.
Paths and roads are then either laid in the edge of the valley, on dams or in one of the valley flanks above the valley floor, or the narrow point is bypassed via a nearby mountain pass (then the valley section and mountain pass are often called the same). In modern times, routes are increasingly being laid in tunnels through mountain slopes and ridges.

Historically, when lakes and rivers were available, goods were transported - wherever possible - on water and hardly ever on paths and roads; even with rivers in both directions, as long as this was feasible. This meant that certain valley passes could be bypassed in at least one direction; Rafted wood, for example, was loaded with goods on the Alpine Rhine from Reichenau to Rheineck , after the Rhine had been a free imperial road since 1291 (analogy to the free imperial city ).

The synonymous term Klause can be found in place names .

Well-known valley passes

Kerenzerberg ; a rock bar on Lake Walen , pierced for the first time by the railway tunnel in 1859 , while a road was only built after 1960 along this former railway line.
Fortress ruins on the Strub pass
(Sorted by alphabet)

See also

credentials

  1. ^ Markus Kaiser: Rhine. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . August 27, 2013 , accessed June 13, 2019 .
  2. ^ Official homepage of the Munster community