Adventure Travel Online - Hiking in Switzerland

There are many impressive sights and loads of fantastic treks in the Alps and none come much better than the view of the Eiger, Monch and Jungrau from a hike through the Bernese Oberland. Peter Roberts laces up his boots for a 10 day hike through central Switzerland.

It’s as hard to get off a Swiss train as it is to contemplate getting onto a British one. They’re just so good. Even the destinations on the front are more exotic; Berlin, Rome, Paris (maybe even Beijing, for all I know). My old drinking mate who regularly used to fall asleep on the 23:55 from Paddington to Ealing Broadway and wake up in Truro would relish the possibilities.

Then there are little touches like the tables where you can sit around and play cards or watch the mountains slip by. And they’re quick too, and on time, and this one whisked me from Basel to Bern and along the Lake Thun to Interlaken, from where the Jungfrau mountain looks so beautiful, that it seems almost profane that anyone should want to climb it at all.

I’d left the grey of Liverpool John Lennon Airport (“above us, only drizzle”) for ten days hiking in the Bernese Oberland. The plan was: to hike up to Schynige Platte, then the long descent below the Wetterhorn to Grindelwald, and along the ‘Eiger trail’ below the most famous north face in the world. Then on to Lauterbrunnen, the dreamiest of Alpine valleys, up and over to Kandersteg to finish with the high pass and a view of the Bietschhorn and the Lötschental wall. A nice enough introduction to Switzerland, I thought to myself.

Much of the first day, takes in the hike that everyone should do at some point in their lives (and forced to by law, in my opinion). For I‘d never seen a view like it, in the Alps or anywhere else. Not a huge massif like Mont Blanc, nor a single sweep from pasture to pinnacle like the great Matterhorn, but a parade, a wall, an impenetrable barrier of sharp ice clad peaks: the Wetterhorn, Schreckhorn, Finsteraarhorn, Fiescherhorn and, of course the Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau.

There’s a parallel with viewing the Taj Mahal: no amount of expectation can disappoint you. Try and see the northern wall of the Oberland before you die, and – like the Taj Mahal – do so at dusk or dawn, when the light is at its best. And preferably, from the terrace of Switzerland’s oldest mountain hotel on the top of the Faulhorn, with a beer in hand.

Wind came in the night. In the morning, banners of cloud flew from the Schreckhorn and Wetterhörner. But although they were to remain there for much of the day, east of the Faulhorn in the valley winding down to the Bachsee it was sunny and calm.

During the day I met up with Paul from Bern. We climbed the Schwarzhorn, giving the Klettersteig along the west ridge a miss as we only had one harness between us, and instead plodded up the scree to the rocky summit. A tired little glacier on the north side, thin and black, looked like it was just about to give up on its fight with global warming. The same can’t yet be said of the great glaciers that carve the Oberland’s north wall, but there are signs of retreat there too.

Bern’s second-hand bookshops are full of Swiss maps from the early and mid 20th century with intricately drawn rivers of ice almost knocking at doors in the village of Grindelwald. They don‘t do that now. Old postcards show Victorians crossing the Upper Grindelwald Glacier as it snakes its way through the forest. The tourist trappings are still there, but the glacier has long retreated. The Eiger’s north face, is now almost just a rock wall, with thin, tenuous patches of ice, all that remains of the three famous icefields and the infamous White Spider.

You can catch a bus down to Grindelwald from the pass at Grosse Scheidegg or make the long, gentle descent on foot. Grindelwald? Well, the once quaint Alpine village now has pole-dancers, and waiters who address everyone in English. From here the Eiger towers over, and you can pick out three lights at dusk, which mark the course of the Jungfraujoch railway, which burrows its way up through the mountain to the highest station in Europe. The fourth light, high to the left, is that of the Mitteleggi Hut. The hut is at 3,300m and on a ridge so narrow it overhangs the Eiger’s north-east wall.

From Grindelwald I took a day out from the planned route to check out the Schreckhorn Hut. The trail rises easily to a refreshment chalet at Bäregg and then, with the aid of fixed ropes, chains and the odd ladder, it skirts high above the Lower Grindelwald Glacier and the impressive icefalls of the Ischmeer. At the hut, where you are welcomed with a complimentary cup of tea and you’re about as far into the Oberland as you can get from the north, unless you‘re an experienced climber.

But it’s not the view towards the heart of the region that take the eye: it’s the huge 1,200m north face of the Fiescherhorn just across the valley. You also get to see the south face of the Eiger and its long east ridge descending to the Ostegg. As you walk in from Pfingstegg, a hole appears in the wall of the Ostegg about 1000m above. You’d think it was a tiny patch of snow, but a plaque beside the path explains that it’s actually a hole made by someone called Martin, who as legend has it, decided to move the Eiger and the Mättenberg.

The story goes that ’Martin’ braced his back to the east and pushed with his legs and his stick to the west. Today you see not only the marks of his posterior on the Mättenberg, but the hole left by his stick through the Ostegg. The sun shines through this hole directly onto Grindelwald Church three weeks before the winter solstice. And if you stand next to the church and look up at the hole, you’ll see that it’s all true.

Leaving Grindelwald next morning, the sky darkened from the west and the summit of the Eiger was in cloud. Above Alpiglen the Eiger Trail traverses the scree and rubble below the north face to the famous Eigergletscher station - the traditional location for viewing climbers on the North Wall. Craning the neck upwards, the mile-high sweep of the great cliff face is foreshortened; some way up on the left side are viewing galleries cut from the rock at the stations inside the mountain, but above them the scale is simply too large to comprehend.

As I descended from the Eiger, below the Mönch and Jungfrau, along moraines and through sweet-smelling pine forests towards the Trümmelsbach Falls of the Lauterbrunnen valley, the yellowing skies closed in and the first thunder rolled out of the gloom, and the rain began to fall.

The rain and clouds hung around for three days, blotting out Lauterbrunnen’s peaks and vertical valley walls (great spot for base jumpers). At the roadhead, the Hotel Stechelberg was a simple and welcoming place to see out the deluge, although, I managed a wet afternoon’s hike round the head of the valley to the 2100m Oberhornsee. High above, the famed north faces of the Gletscherhorn, Ebnefluh, Mittaghorn, Grosshorn and Breithorn danced in and out of the clouds. These walls present ice-climbers with some of the severest challenges in the Alps: and impressive they remain, though now they look wet, rock-scarred and dangerous.

Apparently, the Gspaltenhorn’s north face is bigger than the Eiger’s. But I’ll have to trust the guide book on that one, as the next day I saw nothing other than rain and cloud on the way up to the Gspaltenhorn hut. But here’s a difference I found between my trips to the British hills and the Alps: the wind. In three days of rain I had felt hardly a breath of it. So, while the conditions were not great, it was never dangerous, nor did it sap the body of strength, or depressed the spirits as can happen in the British hills. At 8,000 feet, and otherwise knackered, I was thankful for that.

The next morning I found the world transformed; the rain had gone, the sun was out and there were great views of the Morgenhorn rising in snowy tiers above the dark, rubble-covered Gamchi glacier. After the rain it was a joy to bounce down the moraine, pick my way across the glacier and hike up to the Blüemlisalp hut.

On the way up, chamois grazed on small tufts of grass in the screes; a wallcreeper, moth-like with a grey body and Barbie-pink wings, flitted from crag to crag, and alpine choughs wheeled in the sky. The beer and soup at the hut were good, the blue air sharp on the brain. Then it was down again to the deep glacial turquoise of Kandersteg’s showpiece, the Oeschinensee lake, enclosed by vertical limestone walls and the tumbling glacier of the Doldenhorn..

Kandersteg is pleasant enough, but what impresses most is, the railway. The train station is huge, almost a German Hauptbahnhof dropped in the middle of the Alps. Trains go south to Italy and north to Germany and beyond. There is a no-through road that ends here, but you can drive onto a train! I strolled on through the wooded flats of the Gasteretal to Brandhubel, then up past an old and beautifully situated refreshment chalet at Gfelalp to the Lötschenpass hut on the broad col below the Balmenhorn.

This was one of the last weekends of the summer and the locals were out in force checking out the sunset view of the great peaks of the southern Swiss canton of Valais. For a good minute, a magnificent male ibex stood silhouetted against the mighty pile of the Bietschhorn as if it were being paid to do so.

“Do you know,” said a man at my table, “that all Swiss ibex are descended from the last remaining herd in the Gran Paradiso National Park?”

“But did you know that they were all stolen from the Paradiso by Swiss mountaineers because the Italians wouldn’t let us have any?”

In the morning I sped downwards towards the head of the Lötschental, the western gateway (or exit) to the Oberland. For my last night, the tiny speck of the Bietschhorn hut on the other side of the valley was irresistible, even if the 1,100m slog up wasn’t. But I was pretty fit by now. One of the smallest wardened huts in the Alps, and with almost no changes to it in decades, it’s the base camp for one of the least known of the big mountains of the Oberland.

The reason for the Bietschhorn’s relative obscurity is that it tops out at 3,934m, just 66m short of magic 4000m mark and fame. From the hut the most adventurous part of the trail began its descent to the station at Goppenstein. The path is cut into the steep slopes crossing four or five breaches in the ridges coming down from the Wilerhorn. The final section plunges steeply through thick forest to the station car park.

And there, as I stood tired and sweaty and seemingly in the middle of nowhere, another superb, gleaming train pulled in from Milan, or Rome, or Naples or maybe Bejing. In little over 90 minutes I was floating in the clear waters of the Lake of Thun, bang on time.

What you need to know

Season

Most refuges are open from spring at least until the end of September and often well into October. Early in the season can be lots of snow still around, particularly on the higher cols, with the additional dangers of avalanches. The Oberland gets the brunt of weather coming from the north and west and is relatively wet by Alpine (although not by British) standards.

Getting there

EasyJet fly to Basel-Mulhouse airport and a few carriers (Swissair for example) fly into Geneva from UK regional airports. From all airports you’ll be able to take the train to Interlaken.

Timing and difficulties

Not less than 8 days for the route described if the day-walks to the Schreckhorn hut and the upper Lauterbrunnen valley are omitted. Some walkers will need longer as my average day was 9-10 hours. It is easy to plan overnight stops ahead and the hut network is good, but it is advisable to ring ahead to ensure places are available. Mobile reception in this area is, with few exceptions, very good.

Routes are well-marked, some with fixed ropes and ladders, though none are very exposed. In general, a route marked with white-red-white slashes is suitable for mountain walkers; a route marked white-blue-white will have exposed bits, usually protected with fixed ropes, sometimes ladders, and maybe sections of easy scrambling. Some may feel more comfortable with a via ferrata kit but it‘s not essential. The last descent from the Bietschhorn hut to Goppenstein is well-marked, though little used. It has no dangers for the sure-footed, but unlike better-used blue-graded routes there are no fixed ropes or other aids in place.

Gear

Early or late in the season you should consider boots, crampons, and an ice axe - by mid summer the route should be free of snow. Pack the sort of hiking gear you would for the British hills and you‘ll be fine. Sun cream, and a water bottle of at least 1 litre are recommended as there are large areas are limestone with little surface water. All the huts have blankets or duvets. Wild camping and open fires are generally forbidden in this area.

Accommodation

Although in the high season the Oberland can be crowded, there is no shortage of accommodation and, once in the mountains, the huts are sensibly spaced and allow for some flexibility given the possibilities of bad weather, crocked bits of anatomy and other unforeseen circumstances. The mountain refuges with wardens are well-equipped with supplies so you don’t need to pack food. It is best to book huts in advance during the summer. If ringing from outside Switzerland or on a UK mobile, the international code is 0041. The main accommodation details along this route are:

Stechelberg, 910m, Hotel Stechelberg, tel: (033) 855 2921; web: www.stechelberg.ch;

There are tourist information offices at Interlaken (033 826 5304), Grindelwald (033 854 1212) and Kandersteg (033 675 8080). There is also a small information centre in Wilderswil, at the entrance to the Lauterbrunnen valley. A good starting point for information is the Swiss Tourist Office website www.myswitzerland.com The Swiss Railways website is very easy to navigate and provides all timetables; the English-language site is www.sbb.ch

Guide Books

The British Alpine Club climbers’ guidebook to the Bernese Oberland (Alpine Club, ISBN 0-900523-64-6) details the major routes on most peaks as well as all hut approaches. Kev Reynolds’ Tour of the Jungfrau Region (Cicerone Press, ISBN 1-85284-493-3) covers some of my route and has a good list of accommodation contacts.

For more about the global warming, you might want to try and get hold of a fascinating book called Gletscher im Treibhaus (‘Glaciers in the Greenhouse’), published by Tecklenburg Verlag (ISBN 3-934427-41-3). The photographs in this book are in pairs: firstly postcard and other views of the great Alpine peaks and glaciers from various times between the late 19th century and the mid 20th century and then, next to them, a photograph taken from the same spot during the infamously hot Alpine summer of 2003. The changes in length and level (and colour) of the glaciers are remarkable – and, if you’re a sensitive soul, depressing.

Maps

Swiss maps are superb – and very beautiful. They are widely available in the area, including station kiosks, tourist shops and many mountain huts, and can be bought in the UK from Stanfords, 12-14 Long Acre, London WC2E 9LP, www.stanfords.co.uk. Map lists and grids are available online. Stanfords also has a branch in Bristol (29 Corn Street).

The regular Swiss Survey (Landestopographie) 1:50,000 series (green covers) show paths but don’t differentiate between marked and unmarked ones, which is important, nor do they classify paths by difficulty. New editions of these maps (with yellow covers) make good both omissions. They aren’t cheap – but nor are most works of art, so don’t complain.

To cover this walk in its entirety, you’ll need 254T (Interlaken), 263T (Wildstrubel) and 264T (Jungfrau). There is also a series at 1:25,000 (brown covers) but, lovely as they are, they too don’t differentiate between marked and unmarked routes.

Kümmerly and Frey produce a single map of the whole region at 1:60,000, with paths marked (Map 18: Jungfrau-Region, Thuner- und Brienzersee). This advantage aside, the mapping is inferior to the Landestopographie series. If you have time to spend in Bern, there are excellent second-hand bookshops, especially along Kramgasse and Gerechtigkeitsgasse, and they have some very beautiful old maps of the Oberland and other Swiss Alpine areas, sometimes at very cheap prices.

Costs

So long as sterling remains strong, Switzerland no longer requires a second mortgage. Prices are roughly the same as the UK, with accommodation in even quite good hotels often cheaper.

Eating out works out about the same and the food is good. Huts aren’t cheap but they’re not a rip-off either, although there is no appreciable difference in the day-to-day cost of staying in mountain hut as opposed to small hotels or pensions. However, the locations and atmosphere makes it all worth the money.

Language

German – or, to be precise, Swiss German – is the first language of the area. It is very different from the Hochdeutsch with which those who learnt German in school will be familiar; some even consider it a different language.

In addition there are many variants of Swiss-German within the regions. Most locals have good French and English. It’s worth pointing out that there are two other languages spoken in Switzerland: Italian (mostly in the south-east) and Romance, a Latin-based language almost entirely restricted to the canton of Graubünden and used by no more than 50,000 people these days. As stated, English is widely spoken, even by farm animals, but go on, take the plunge, along with a German phrasebook and dictionary.

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Alun November 22, 2007 86.152.236.113 Votes: +0	Hi Pete, I must agree. Having spent a lot of time in the Oberland the view of the north faces of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau is defo one of the best you'll come across anywhere. Don't know about you but I found Interlaken to be the most expensive place in the Alps - accomodation, food and drink is very expensive. But don't let that put you off, it's a great town, the adventure capital of the Alps. Also, I'm pretty sure we bumped into Sylvester Stallone outside the Victoria Jungfrau. It looked like him, he was short had a weird plastic look to his face and spoke with an American accent...it was him. report abuse vote down vote up

From Interlaken through the Oberland