Skål och välkomna till Schweiz!
Gustav, Katarina, and I went to Grindelwald in Switzerland for a week in August 2007.
Katarina's and my luggage did not get there quite as fast, but we managed to
do fun stuff for the three days we were without luggage (there were flooding
in Switzerland so the train-bound system to seend stuff was not functioning
properly.
Grindelwald is the ideal idyllic alp village. Situated at less than 1000 m
elevation at the foot of Eiger, a peak almost 4000m high, makes for a
spectacular vista. But there are amazing mountains all around. Heavy rains
(the reason for the floods) resulted in snow above 1900m.
A tripple of peaks, Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau, as seen from across the
Grindelwald valley.
Someone forgot his sunhat and did not want to buy a new one. Pointy horns
sticking out from the front? Why does a flat surface become curved when you
knot the corners? Why are there no knots on spheres then?
Klettersteig
Day 3 we rented gear to do a Via Ferrata on Schwartshorn (or whatever, higher
than 2900m). Really nice ridge ferrata, would have been nicer without the
clouds. (All the summit pictures are just foggy so I left them out).
Mönch
Day 4 and 5 were planned for Mönch and Jungfrau.
Stepping of the train took you our into the snow.
Well maintained path from the trainstation at 3400m to the "hut" at 3650.
Mönch in the background, the trick is to follow the ridge all the way from the
right.
The ridge looks a bit steeper when you are on it.
More action.
Looking down at Mönchjochutte (lower left corner) from Mönch. Now it is time
to point out that it is infinitly more impressive in real life. Not the hut,
the mountians.
And then we got to the summit. Balancing up on the top ridge prevented taking
any pictures. The ridge was actually a bit nerve-wrecking, sometimes balancing on the
very top, sometimes down a bit due to cornishes. It was pretty crowded on the
top, probably 10-15 parties summiting this fantastic day.
Jungfrau from the summit of Mönch. We were too tired on the morning of the day
when we were going to do Jungfrau so we skipped it. There was early fog also.
Going down slowly. I got pretty tired and a bit nauseous.
Stockhorn
Yet another foggy ridge climb.
Gustav lead all the way up to the 4b step.
Me composing myself for some 4b in boots. The bolts are
closer than in most gyms.
Katarina happily coming up after.
My belaying tactics from Mönch and here. ;) No wonder they want me to lead...
No hugs? Not too convinced that the Swizz needs a special signs to forbid
hugging, but whatever.
Two boys and a summit. Sigh.
All in all an awesome week, beer-drinking, food-eating and other joys are not
published here. Some of the pictures above were taken by Katarina
and Gustav, I am not that good at selecting the best, several nuggets were
left out. The panoramas where stitched together with the free program Autostitch.