At Gletsch, the Rhône is still a young stream, trickling from the foot of a glacier that once filled the whole basin. The hamlet sits at about seventeen hundred and sixty metres, in a bleak, beautiful hollow where two of Switzerland's great passes diverge: the Furka heads east toward Andermatt, and the Grimsel runs north to Meiringen, while the Rhône valley falls away to the south-west. A grand old hotel from the nineteenth century stands at the junction, its pale façade looking oddly large against the bare mountains, and for a few months each year it is the only sign of human life for miles.
The Rhône Glacier, which gives the river its source, has been retreating for more than a century. In the 1800s, it reached down almost to the hamlet, and visitors came in carriages to admire it. Today it ends high above, and large sections are covered with white fleece blankets in summer to slow the melting. An ice grotto cut into the glacier can be visited by a short walk from the Furka road, and lets you stand inside the blue ice, though the tunnel has to be recut each year as the ice moves.
Film fans will know the place. The Furka Pass was the setting for a car chase in the James Bond film Goldfinger in 1964, with an Aston Martin on the hairpins above the glacier, and the hotel appears in the sequence. Steam railway enthusiasts come too: the Furka Steam Railway, a restored mountain line, runs on summer days between Realp and Oberwald, passing near Gletsch.
The riding is the reason to come. The Furka, at about 2,430 metres, has a long series of hairpins on both sides, with a good surface and big views. The Grimsel, at about 2,160 metres, has wider bends, huge dams and turquoise reservoirs. Both are open only in summer, usually from June to October, and snow can close them at any time, so check before you set off. At this altitude, temperatures can be close to freezing even in July, with wind and sudden storms, so carry warm gear and keep gloves in the top box.
The hotel serves meals, and a cup of coffee on its terrace, with the glacier in sight, is a fine reward.