Moorland Alpenrose

Earlier, when the men did not yet intervene in the landscape of the Aletsch area, large parts of the Riederalp were forested. Here occured larger and smaller bogs, also where today the golf course is situated as well as a little east of this. During the millennia trees fell into the mires and were preserved in the peat to this day. In small drainage channels and even during excavations the peat interfused with pieces of wood comes sometimes to light. 
In 1989, during foundation works for a small road north of the Hotel Alpenrose, four old larch trunks were dug out of a several meters high peat layer. The trees grew about 8.000 years ago and were 365 - 458 years old. The larches could get as old, because men had not yet intervened in the landscape. Only since the Bronze Age about 4.000 years ago and even more since the Iron Age around 3.000 years ago, people started to use the Riederalp and also the Aletsch forest. This could be detected by the analysis of pollen preserved in bogs in the Aletsch forest.