Chasseral, Mountain summit in Bern and Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
Chasseral is a mountain summit straddling the border between Bern and Neuchâtel cantons at 1607 meters elevation. From the top, views extend across Lake Biel, the Alpine chain, the Vosges mountains, and the Black Forest in the distance.
In 1803 the Chasseral became Switzerland's first central triangulation point, used to fix the country's elevation levels. A mountain inn has stood just below the ridge since 1875 (1880 in German sources); it burned in March 1925 and was rebuilt in 1926 in Heimatstil as a Jura farmhouse. The first PTT transmission tower went into service on 26 June 1945, and the 120-metre mast of 1983 was replaced on 25 June 2010.
The name Chasseral comes from the former German name Gestler, still used locally. Since November 2022 the Bernese Jura region markets itself as "Grand Chasseral" after the peak. The mountain appears on the 2024 official photo of the Federal Council.
The summit is accessible via well-maintained hiking paths starting from the Chasseral hotel, served by regular bus connections. Trails remain passable year-round, though conditions at higher elevation vary with the season.
On the south slope, about twenty large blocks creep slowly downhill on a grassy scree, tearing parallel furrows in the turf. They shift 6 to 25 cm a year and have travelled 20 to 30 m. The summit also carries a MeteoSwiss automatic weather station and the amateur radio relay HB9XC on 438.725 MHz.
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