'Dark Aar horn' — finster means 'dark' in German, and Aar is the river (the Aare) whose two great glacial branches (Unteraar and Finsteraar) flow from the peak's flanks. The Finsteraar (literally 'dark Aar') is the more sombre, shaded of the two.
Highest peak of the Bernese Alps.
The highest peak of the Bernese Alps has a tangled first-ascent history. A party led by the Aargau naturalist Rudolf Meyer claimed the summit in 1812, but their account is confused enough that the Swiss Alpine Club rejected the claim in the 19th century. The credited first ascent is therefore 10 August 1829, when Jakob Leuthold and Johann Währen — guides on Franz Joseph Hugi's scientific expedition — left their employer at a foresummit and continued to the top on their own.
Route lines are approximate — drawn from guidebook waypoints, not GPS tracks. Don't navigate by them.
