Delicate landscapes -- It is easy for a Californian to compare the sublime Lauterbrünnen Valley with Yosemite, famously championed by Ansel Adams. Both have been sculpted by glaciers over the eons.

They are now inundated with people. The smaller, drier and more fragile Yosemite Valley has smog hanging above it, and is accessible mostly by shuttle bus. What isn't vertical rock in the Lauterbrünnental has long become farmland, well before the English and German Romantics heralded the tourism boom in Switzerland at the onset of the Industrial Revolution two centuries ago.

The photo above is taken with the Canon G1 digital camera. Adams probably used a large-format camera.