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Julier Pass
View of the Julier Pass from Piz Polaschin
Elevation	2,284 m (7,493 ft)
Traversed by	Paved road
Location	Graubünden, Switzerland
Range	Albula Alps
Coordinates	46°28.32′N 09°43.74′E / 46.47200°N 9.72900°E / 46.47200; 9.72900
Julier PassLocation in Switzerland

The Julier Pass (Romansh: Pass dal Güglia, German: Julierpass, Italian Passo del Giulia) (el. 2284 m) is a mountain pass in the Albula Alps of Switzerland. It connects the Engadin valley with central Graubünden. At its summit, the pass crosses the drainage divide between the basins of the rivers Rhine and Danube.

The Julier Pass lies between the towns of Bivio to the west and Silvaplana to the east. It is numbered as part of the Swiss N29 motorway and the H3 main road. The pass was heavily used in the Roman era and contains the most artifacts of Roman roads of any location in Graubünden. The modern road was built between 1820 and 1828.

The road constructed in the 1820s was well built and is still easily passable after moderate widening for normal cars and trucks. In some parts, areas were rebuilt in 2009 to reduce the number of serpentine turns. Winter use requires winter tires, as well as snow chains in extremely poor weather.

The Julier Pass is one of the three paved road passes connecting the Engadin with the northern Grisons, the two other being the Albula Pass and the Flüela Pass.

Geography

The highest point of the Julier Pass is 2284 meters above sea level. The Julier Pass lies south of Piz Bardella, Piz Lagrev, and Piz Julier, and north of Piz da las Coluonnas. A few metres south of the summit is a small lake, Lej da las Culuonnas.

History

The Julier Pass was in regular use during the Bronze and Iron Ages. It saw heavy traffic in the Roman era, evidenced by the countless coins and remains of Roman roads discovered in the region; it has the most artifacts of the Roman roads of any location in the canton. Two monumental soapstone columns flank the modern pass road at its summit; excavations in the 1930s revealed that the columns were part of a Roman sanctuary.

Historically, the Julier Pass was in competition with the shorter but steeper Septimer Pass. Together, the two passes made up the Obere Strasse (lit. 'upper road'), which continued northwards via Lenzerheide to Chur, and southwards via the Maloja Pass. During the Roman era, the Julier Pass was a road suitable for two-wheeled carts, the largest vehicles able to negotiate the steep slopes, while the Septimer Pass was only suitable for pack animals. It is also possible that carts were sent over the Julier Pass when loaded and over the shorter Septimer Pass when empty.

The Julier Pass lost importance in 1387, when a small road over the Septimer Pass was built. In 1473, the path through the Viamala was expanded, and the Obere Strasse was no longer preferred for transalpine travel. The Viamala was part of the Untere Strasse (lit. 'lower road'), which ran via the Splügen Pass and San Bernardino Pass. This shift led the Bishop of Chur, who controlled the Obere Strasse, to acquire Thusis and Heinzenberg from the Counts of Werdenberg, giving him control of the Untere Strasse and a monopoly over the passes of the Three Leagues. Thus, in the High and Late Middle Ages, the Julier Pass was mainly used to provide access to the upper Engadin, Bernina Pass, and Fuorn Pass.

In the first millennium, the passes of Graubünden were controlled by a patchwork of feudal lords. By the second millennium, transport over the passes was operated by six cooperatives called Porten or Rodgenossenschaften. The Porten were commercial enterprises which transported goods for a fee. They were also responsible for maintaining the passes and roads and would work with local towns and governments to improve road infrastructure. The Porten, as associations of teamsters (Fuhrleute), also functioned similarly to guilds, with 3500 members by the late 18th century. Goods had to be offloaded and re-loaded onto new carts or pack animals for each Port that transported them, with the result that goods moving from Chur to Chiavenna or Bellinzona had to be off- and re-loaded no less than six times. Despite this inefficiency, the Porten of the Untere Strasse were the preferred transalpine route, ahead of the Gotthard and Brenner, except in times of war, until they were overtaken by the Brenner Pass in the early 19th century. By that point, large, efficient horse-drawn vehicles could cross the Brenner, allowing a single teamster to transport 30 Zentner (3000 pounds) of goods. In Graubünden, road conditions were still so poor that only pack animals or two-wheeled carts could cross the passes.

Roadbuilding

The 1803 Act of Mediation turned the Three Leagues into the Swiss canton of Graubünden, which returned economic stability to the region after the chaos of the Italian and Swiss expedition. By this point, the Brenner Pass had overtaken Graubünden as the most efficient transalpine route, largely due to better road infrastructure. The poor roads in Graubünden were especially troublesome when they prevented the northward transport of large amounts of grain during the Year Without a Summer (1816) and subsequent years of famine; most of the grain purchased abroad spoiled in Italian harbors or at the foot of the Alps. This resulted in strong domestic support for building roads across the Alpine passes within Graubünden.

The first two alpine roads built in Graubünden were along the San Bernardino and Splügen Passes of the Untere Strasse. In 1816, a six-meter-wide road along the 100-kilometer-long San Bernardino route was plotted by Ticino State Councillor Giulio Pocobelli [de] within a few days. Although supported by Ticino and the Kingdom of Sardinia, the project was opposed by cantons along the Gotthard route and Austria, which controlled Lombardy and difficult to finance. Eventually, with funding from the merchants of Chur, the Porten, and the municipalities along the route, construction of the San Bernardino commercial road began on 14 September 1818 and was completed by the summer of 1823. In the meantime, Lombardy constructed a four-meter-wide road over the Splügen Pass, which was completed by the summer of 1822. Between 1820 and 1828, the canton of Graubünden expanded the road from Chur to Castasegna via the Julier and Maloja Passes into a five-meter-wide commercial road, at a cost of 1.24 million Francs. This proved incredibly prescient when massive flooding of the Hinterrhein in 1834 obstructed the Untere Strasse to San Bernardino at 72 locations and destroyed 24 bridges. The new road allowed the displaced transalpine traffic to be rerouted over the unaffected Julier Pass without issue.

Route

See also

• Maloja Pass and Septimer Pass, two passes in close proximity of the Julier Pass
• List of highest paved roads in Switzerland
• List of highest road passes in Switzerland

Notes

1. "Kantonales Strassennetz" (PDF). Tiefbauamt Graubünden. 2024-01-01. Retrieved 2024-12-31.
2. "Strassenverzeichnis" (PDF). Tiefebauamt Graubünden. 2024-11-20. Retrieved 2024-12-31.
3. IVS 2007, p. 10
4. ^ IVS 2007, p. 20
5. ^ Topographic map of the Grisons, Swisstopo. Retrieved 31 December 2024
6. IVS 2007, pp. 9–10
7. ^ Simonett, Jürg (30 January 2018). "Julierpass". Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz (in German). Retrieved 2024-12-31.
8. IVS 2007, pp. 9–10
9. IVS 2007, p. 14
10. IVS 2007, pp. 11
11. IVS 2007, p. 15
12. IVS 2007, p. 15
13. IVS 2007, pp. 13–14, 16, 18
14. IVS 2007, pp. 18
15. IVS 2007, pp. 19

References

• Historische Verkehrswege im Kanton Graubünden (PDF) (in German). Bundesinventar der historischen Verkehrswege der Schweiz (IVS). 2007.

External links

• Media related to Julierpass at Wikimedia Commons
• Profile on climbbybike.com

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