Grindelwald

July 1999

Get to Grindelwald, climb the Monch, climb the Jungfrau and then look around for any other peaks that take our fancy in the remainder of the week.

That was the plan.

It was the most meticulously planned plan of all time with all aspects of the route, equipment and accommodation put together with the sort of precision with which the watch makers of the land would have been proud.

We, that is Bob Lister, Ian Merther, Paul Read and myself had spent the previous year buying gear, honing our bodies to the peak of physical fitness, scouring maps, buying more gear, seeking advice from others who had already done it, reading guide books, and buying even more gear.

The first part of the plan went well. We got to Grindelwald in good time and took temporary residence in one of the many thousands of houses scattered along the valleys everyone of which could have adorned any number of chocolate boxes.

The weather was fine and hot and to get the journey out of our legs we caught the train up to the Schynige Platte and spent the first day strolling at a relatively low level amidst the glorious scenery of the Bernese Oberland with our gaze drawn again and again to the peaks of the Eiger, the Monch and the Jungfrau in the near distance. Only the exquisite alpine flowers carpeting the hillside offered a sufficiently good reason to look away from those waiting majestic peaks.

The next day saw us aboard the Jungfraujoch railway bound for the very different world of glaciers, thin air and permanent snow. The walk from the station to the Monchjoch hut in mixed visibility was made memorable by the fantastic close up views of the peaks and glaciers and by the scarry echoing crack and rumble sound of a collapsing ice tower coming somewhere out of the cloud to our left.

The welcoming sight of the Monchjoch hut precariously bolted onto the east flank of the Monch, at a height of 12,000 feet above sea level eventually loomed out of the mist and our puffing and panting in the thin air was almost over for the day. Only the testing walk upstairs to our room remained.

The fact that altitude can cause hallucinations is well known and perhaps all of those 'yeti' stories can be attributed to that same cause. I could have sworn that I saw with my own eyes, when surrounded on all sides as far as the eye could see by nothing but snow, rock, ice and more snow, leaning up the wall by the entrance to the hut ; a lawnmower. Strange thing this altitude.

Weather permitting we would climb the Monch tomorrow. But the weather did not permit and the day was spent in the hut drinking tea out of soup bowls, which was the way it was served there and then wondering around the unreal but entertaining world of the Jungfraujoch station and its environs in the company of so many Japanese and their cameras that it was hard to accept that we were not in Japan.

The toilet in the hut with it's lavatories consisting of a seat covering a metal pipe, up which an icy blast would blow on occasions when you were at your most vulnerable were rudimentary. However, all other facilities were excellent including the food, our bodies were now becoming acclimatised to the altitude, the sun was shining, the weather forecast was good and we could look forward to a great day tomorrow.

The sacs were packed and we retired to our bunks early. In our minds the day ahead was rehearsed for the final time; up to the the first rock bulge, pass it on the right, pick your way slowly along the ridge, up to the continuous snow section, keep to the South of the crest, keep plodding upward to... to... sleep.

It's 5.00 am and I am awake. I must go outside to those toilets again before we go for our breakfast. Half asleep and half awake I find the door to the outside harder to open than usual. There is a snow drift up it and it is snowing heavily. The realisation that this means that the climb is almost certainly off hits home and immediately begins to hurt.

We all found it hard to accept that the adventure could end like this so we waited and then waited a bit more for the weather to improve, but it only got worse and as the snow storm thickened we packed our bags, paid our bill, said our goodbyes and left.

There had been no running water at the hut and after three days without a wash or a change of clothes we stunk! The guard on the train from Kleine Scheidegg insisted on allocating us our own carriage probably out of concern for the other passengers.

Some of the party spent the next day walking in and around the gorge beyond Grindelwald and a final day was planned which involved taking the cable car to the Schilthorn and then traversing out along the ridge from there. Again we were let down by the weather and although we did manage to claim our first peak, The Hundshorn, the day was spent continuously in cloud. It was a minor victory but a hollow one. It seemed so unfair to be climbing in some of the most fantastic scenery anywhere in the world but being unable to see it.

We drove home the next day knocking two hours off our journey out time. I don't know how we managed that. Maybe we were taking our frustrations out on those French motorways.