In the Swiss Alps along trails, railways, and roads, there are these huge dry stone walls that were built to block and support the forces from an avalanche. The stones are massive and you can see all of the through-stones poking through both sides. The dry stone construction techniques are still the same, but just at a larger scale.
The picture above shows Master Craftsman Norman Haddow and Swiss waller Dieter Schneider standing next to the same wall for scale. I 'eye-balled' a quick estimate of quantity of stone per linear foot from the pic to see what kind of mass is there. I came up with ballpark 6 tons of solid stone construction per linear foot. That's a good chunk of mass that should help in protecting the the established infrastructure throughout the Alps.
When looking at the batter of this retaining wall above, it looks to have the same 'swooping' batter that is similar to the style in Japan. I'm sure the scaffold and hoisting setup would of been pretty intense to be working around, hanging on the side of a mountain.
Another place I'll have to visit.
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