Dossen glacier garden

Above Furi (1,953 m), about 30 minutes’ walk from the cable car station, the Dossen glacier garden shows the effects of the last ice age on the landscape. The retreating Gorner Glacier, the second largest in the Alps, has revealed a variety of glacier mills: rock cauldrons eroded by meltwater from the glacier. As the water flowed through crevasses to the bed of the glacier, it gathered into torrents and formed whirlpools with speeds of up to 200 km/h, which scoured cylindrical cavities in the rock. The first glacier mill was discovered in 1966 by the Zermatt hotelier and nature lover Yvo Biner. 

The site is also home to the remains of a soapstone quarry. The stone is soft and easily worked and was popular for making crockery and the ornate ovens that can still be admired in the living rooms of many houses in the upper Valais. 

• 30 minutes’ walk from Furi cable car station 
• Circular walk via suspension footbridge (90 m above the ground, 100 m long) 
• Glacier mills 
• Soapstone quarry 
• Barbecue sites close by 
• Soapstone crockery and tools for working soapstone on display at Zermatlantis, the Matterhorn Museum 
• Soapstone oven on view in the dining room of the Beausite hotel