Phil and Shev's Excellent Adventure, Part I

Earlier this year I got an email from my friend Shev, who I've known since undergrad. He was coming to Europe again for a conference, this time in Zuerich. Remembering how much my sister loved the Swiss Alps, I suggested to him that we should make a holiday together. And so it came to pass that I took the 12pm ICE from Stuttgart to Zuerich on what looked to be a sunny summer's day on Friday 20 July - my first real break since coming back to Germany in mid-January.

I met Shev at Zuerich Hauptbahnhof where we caught the train to Interlaken, changing at Bern. By now the "sunny summer's day" had been overtaken by intense storms (part of the system causing the recent flooding in England). At Interlaken we changed again, taking a train up to Lauterbrunnen; here we caught a bus up the Lauterbrunnen valley until we reached the cable car station at Stechelberg. Although the view of the mountains was obscured by the low-hanging cloud, it was still possible to get some idea as to the scale of the place: the cable car soars at an alarming angle up over a cliff of at least 100m to reach the small village of Gimmelwald, where we had our accommodation at a backpacker hostel. By now it was 8:30pm, and after a quiet beer outside we turned in for the night.

Despite my incandescent optimism, the next day we woke to find that Gimmelwald was sitting in the middle of a cloud bank. Checking the mountain webcams, however, we noticed that the view from the Schilthorn was clear. Gimmelwald (and the larger village of Muerren) sits just at the bottom of the Schilthorn and it is a quick (albeit expensive) cable car trip to the summit. Some of the James Bond aficionados out there will be interested to know that the cable car station and restaurant "Piz Gloria" at the top of the Schilthorn was the star of the 1969 movie "On Her majesty's Secret Service". I can understand why, as the view from the top was spectacular - in the cable car there was a collective gasp and fumbling for cameras as we emerged from the mist just before the intermediate stop of Birg. As soon as reached the summit proper, we raced outside to the viewing platform and took in the magnificent view towards the Jungfrau massif.




















After admiring the dramatic scenery we decided to explore the region around the summit, taking a short stroll down the southern side. I was amazed to find that although the mountain seemed desolate, if you looked closely enough you could find many very small little flowering plants, as well as an abundance of invertebrate life (spiders and dragonflies!). The clouds from the valley were starting to move closer, breaking like waves on the ridge before spilling over into the valley on the other side. By the time we made our way back to the top of the Schilthorn the view was totally obscured.

A little bit disenchanted we walked through the fog part-way down the mountain until Birg, where we caught the cable car back to Muerren - and were happily surprised to find that the fog at our "base camp" altitude had lifted. We spent some time exploring Muerren, which is much more orientated to the tourist trade than Gimmelwald, before making the 40 minute walk back home. Although there are (very narrow) roads connecting Gimmelwald and Muerren with the rest of the world, only locals are permitted to operate cars here, maintaining the isolated charm of the place.

The next morning was like the previous, with dense fog greeting us for breakfast. We started off by taking the cable car to Muerren, then the rack railway to Gruetschalp before heading down to Lauterbrunnen by cable car. The prospects for the day were starting to improve, so we went over to get a closer look at the waterfall that plunges more than a hundred metres over the cliffs to the valley floor. It's probably worth explaining here that the Lauterbrunnen valley was carved out by glaciers about 100000 years ago and the valley bears all the hallmarks of this sculpture - a largely flat floor and high cliffs for sides.


With the appearance of blue skies we decided to jump on the train for Interlaken, which as its name suggests is wedged between the serene light blue waters of the Thunersee and Brienzsee. Arriving in Interlaken, we first wandered to the river connecting the two lakes, and then along this until we came to the Brienzsee, where we had our lunch. To get a better look of the surroundings we took the funicular railway up the side of the steep valley sides to Harder Klum, where there is an excellent view across the Thunersee and up the Interlaken valley to the Jungfrau massif.


Since the afternoon looked so good we decided to get the most out of our multi-day train tickets and headed for the popular resort town of Grindelwald. Grindelwald is just the foot of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau, which rise up as almost sheer cliffs at the edge of the valley. Unfortunately, we still had a fair amount of cloud about and the top 2000m of the mountains weren't visible. After a bit of a wander through the (tourist-packed) town we decided to take the rack railway back to Lauterbrunnen, via the stop at Kleine Scheidegg, a small village just at the foot of the Eiger. On the first leg we had the train almost to ourselves, allowing us plenty of opportunity to admire the spectacular views across Grindelwald from the train as it crawled out of the valley. Coming down from Kleine Scheidegg the train was packed due to the day tourists to the Jungfrau, but more on that later (next installment).

On Monday we awoke to find absolutely clear skies, so we set out at once for Wilderswil, where we caught the antique rack railway up to Schynige Platte (all these railways were laid in at the start of the 20th century, when the region experienced its first tourist-boom). The wooden-slat seats of the train were pretty uncomfortable, and the slow progress made the 45-minute journey drag. But the view from Schynige Platte (panorama below) was well worth the sore posterior.


It's hard to describe what you feel when looking out to such a view. Firstly of course there is wonder, but also disorientation - the scenery seems to simultaneously violate all your established ideas of proportion and perspective; your intuitive sense of where the horizon should be is met by a wall of rock. It's actually rather hard to look at, as the mind seems to refuse to take it all in as a whole, the eye darting from detail to detail in some attempt to break down the vista into manageable chunks. It's also something that I think I would never get tired of glancing at. I've always had a soft spot for geology, and the experience of smallness and transience that one gets from places such as this is strangely soothing.

Our aim for the day was to walk from Schynige Platte to the gondola station of First - 6.5 hours away. The walk is entirely above the tree line (mostly above 2000m), across the verdant alpine meadows in full summer bloom. Of course we encountered herds of cows jangling their bells, as well as a flock of bell-bedecked sheep a little later. I'm not sure how people can manage to live with the noise. The route itself stuck close to a ridge, on one side dropping steeply away down to Interlaken and the Brienzee, while on the other sloping more gently down towards Grindelwald. For the first few hours we passed quite a few people, but by about midday we had clearly pulled ahead of the pack. The green verdant pastures had also given away to rocky outcrops, with some nearby mountains almost entirely barren.























All morning the bright sunny day had been almost imperceptibly fading as high cloud covered the sky, but it was still quite light when we finally came to the peak of the Faulhorn. Declining to take the gentle stroll up the western side, we bounded up the final 100m or so along the scruffy eastward path. This was the highest point we reached that day, at some 2680m. Bizarrely, at the top of the mountain is a rather dilapidated-looking restaurant; we ate our packed lunch sitting against the lichen-covered wall of the establishment, with the views below as our reward.


From here on the walk was down hill, which proved to be much more treacherous than the climb. The last point of interest on our journey was the Bachalpsee, a small lake with a wonderful view out towards the mountains on the other side of the Grindelwald valley - or at least it would have been, had not the mountains not been covered with thick swirling clouds. Nevertheless, the view was still magnificent, and dramatic in a brooding kind of way.

It was one hour more to the gondola station at First, and then another 30 minute ride down into Grindelwald. It was at least another hour before we made it back to Muerren, when the clouds finally let go with a soft rain. That night we sat outside and admired the awesome power of a mountain thunderstorm, a fitting end to the day.