Crystal hunting or ‘Strahlen’ – how it is called here in Switzerland – is a traditional alpine profession that dates back at least to the Roman age. Originally, large crystals of the mineral quartz – so called ‘Rock Crystals’ – were collected to cut, e.g., glasses, vases or jewelry from it. The beauty and perfection of those crystals fascinated everybody who had the luck to find them in their natural home – the deep cracks and caves in the alps. Once excavated from their dark birthplace and brought into the sun, the light reflected at the crystal faces radiated like the sun itself – german language describes this shining as ‘strahlen’.

The Greeks regarded those crystals as a kind of eternally frozen ice. Today we know that rock-crystals have in principle the same chemical composition as glass – but in contrary to this man-made product most of these crystals took several million years to grow!

After centuries of pure commercial use, the fascination of alpine crystals led to 2 new phenomena: Scientists started to intensively study minerals from the alps in the early 19th century to understand more about how they formed; and private collectors began to buy crystals from local Crystal Hunters. This increased interest brought also other minerals than ‘rock crystals’ into focus of the Crystal Hunters, even if some of such crystals are smaller than a grain of sand! Finally, with the help of microscopes, a whole new world of fascinating symmetries and colors of mineral crystals was discovered. Nevertheless, due to the high effort and experience that is required especially in high alpine terrain, Crystal Hunting remains the passion of a few.