Beth and Mark's Gap Year 2014: Alpine Pass Route - 28th July

I am writing this from the comfort of our hotel room in Saanen, which marks the end of our Alpine Pass Route adventure, which of course means that the morbid prophecies of my last blog post have been avoided. At times along the way I have felt the grim reaper nipping at my heels, but I seem always to have gained good distance between me and her at those points where a sneaky trip, a hail of stones or a slide of snow could have sealed my fate.

The walk has been fantastic, but it has also been hard work. Over the course of 14 days we have covered 171 kilometres in distance, climbed 9209 metres, descended 9834 metres, (some cable car ascents account for the difference). All fuelled by 5 course dinners each night and hearty continental breakfasts each morning (it appears that it is not only the French and Italians who make good bread, the Swiss do a pretty good job as well and we ate mountains of the stuff). Beth has pulled up in good shape and the only injury I have sustained is two black toenails from miles of downhill walking, so we are pretty pleased with our efforts.

Day 1 - Arrival in Engelberg

After farewelling Candice we take a bus from Munich to Zurich. We hadn't actually intended taking buses, but this trip was quite inexpensive and we thought we would give it a try. The bus, which was a big double decker monster was very comfortable, but a little more cramped than a train, and truth be said it didn't quite have the same atmosphere, so for us it was not quite as pleasant an experience. The trip took us basically around the south east corner of Lake Constance into Austria for a little bit before heading southwest to Zurich. I guess that the trip wasn't too bad, but for once we were more excited about the destination than the journey, so we didn't pay it much attention (in fact Beth even caught up on a little sleep). From Zurich we needed to catch a further two trains, one to Lucerne and then one from Lucerne to Engelberg. Two train journeys between major centres. That conjures up visions of a long and arduous journey, but this is Switzerland which is about two thirds the size of Tasmania, so our bums had barely enough time to hit our seats before we had to get back up again to change. After what seemed quite a long bus trip the train trips were done in the blink of an eye.

Our tour operator advised that we should ring our Engelberg hotel an hour before arriving so that they could arrange to meet us at the station, so Beth called from Lucerne. Given that the Hotelier spoke only Swiss German (a dialect of German) and Beth spoke only Australian (a language in its own right, loosely based on English), it amazes me that he was there to meet us at the station and to ferry us to the hotel in the back of the hotel limousine, an old combi van style of thing with a very shaky sort of bench seat bolted into the back where we rattled around alongside our cases. Our hotel was set on the side of a hill (not surprisingly in Switzerland) with very nice views out across Engelberg and allegedly with a wonderful backdrop of Mt Titilus towering overhead. The weather gods were moderately kind to us in that it wasn't raining on our arrival, but low and heavy cloud meant that we could not see any high peaks.

After settling into our room we took a little walk back down the hill to Engelberg for a bit of a sticky beak at the town centre and the old Benedictine Abbey close by. It is a nice little town which seems to be very tourist focused, but not to the extent that it has lost its soul. It is mainly a ski resort but seems to enjoy good numbers of summer visitors as well, so the town was quite lively as we wandered about. As we turned and started for home, very much aware that dinner was provided this evening so we didn't want to be late, the cloud descended a little further and even the little glimpses of mountain that we had when we arrived disappeared from our view forever.

Dinner, which consisted of 5 simple courses and yummy bread, was very nice, and we hoped would set the standard for the rest of our trek. We ignored the fact that we had done nothing today to deserve such a feast and left nothing on the plate. Just loading up the energy stores for the next day.

Day 2 - Engelberg to Engstlenalp (14Km distance, 1,205m ascent, 373m descent)

I think that this first day was designed to just get us into our stride by covering only 14 kilometres, but the 1.2Km of ascent would ensure that it was not a gentle stroll. Our notes promised us magical vistas of the towering Titilus mountains and Trubsee lake as we set out, of the Wetterhorn emerging as we cross the Jochpass, and of the glistening Engstlensee lake as we descend into Engstlenalp, but as we were accompanied by drizzle and fog for the whole journey, we can only take their word for it. We have seen photographs which do tend to confirm that we missed some spectacular stuff. But every cloud has a silver lining. Being denied the splendour of distant vistas certainly caused me to shift my focus to those things at closer range which I could see, particularly the wildflowers which are unbelievably diverse and beautiful. These would have been lost had I had the mountains and lakes to gaze at.

Despite the miserable weather, the walk was good. Certainly hard going up the hills, but satisfying when you reach the top, which in this case was the Jochpass at 2,207m. The Jochpass seems to be a point of convergence for all cable cars servicing the snowfields hereabouts, and is not quite the remote mountain pass that we became accustomed to when we walked around Mont Blanc 5 years ago. The place was a veritable construction site. It already boasted a couple of restaurants, some accommodation and of course the cable car stations, but it looked like there was a whole new complex being built as well as major maintenance being carried out on existing buildings. Clearly winter is when the money is made here, because the only things operating were us (barely) and the few workmen prepared to brave the rain. Construction site plus rain of course equals mud, so we didn't hang around here too much.

Our path down the hill followed the course of a chairlift, which whirred into action after we were well progressed on our downward journey and the rain was quite belting down, and we laughed as we saw a sole and lonely looking passenger pass over our heads covered in a lap rug and umbrella and disappear into the fog ahead. It was only afterwards that I realised that it would have made a great photo. Oh well, that will need to remain part of the private collection that lives in my head. Seeing this lonely soul pass overhead made us laugh, but it also made us a little envious. Getting wet in the fog on a slippery downhill track wasn't exactly a lot of fun, and how come this chap could get a lift when we couldn't. The envy passed quite quickly and we got on with the job at hand, Beth navigating and me holding up proceedings to photograph wildflowers.

Halfway down the hill we met a couple of cousins, one from Germany and the other from Switzerland, who were walking to Italy and whose route coincided with ours for a short way. They spoke quite good English and were happy to have a chat, which certainly helped lift our spirits a bit. They were also staying at Engslenalp where we caught up with them again and enjoyed a good chat. The few brief conversations we had with people on the track invariably involved where we were heading, which of course was Engstlenalp (pronounced roughly eng-slen-alp). Beth and I however had arrived at a different pronunciation (engel-snap). Little wonder that we drew blank looks when we stated our destination. Eventually someone set us straight. I have come to grips with the right pronunciation, but I think Engelsnap is permanently imprinted on Beth's brain.

We were warned in our notes not to expect too much from our accommodation at Engstlenalp. It was the only boarding house within coo-ee and apparently the meals were basic and although the rooms were private, the facilities were also rudimentary, and by the way, the proprietor isn't such a bad old thing, but he can be a bit grumpy at times, so be on your guard. Needless to say, we approached with some trepidation, but the food was fantastic, the rooms were very comfortable, and the hosts were quite convivial. Perhaps we stayed at the wrong place. This experience did warn us that we should be very careful about putting our faith in our notes.

Day 3 - Engstlenalp to Meiringen (22Km distance, 0 m ascent, 373m descent)

Again I think that today's walk is designed as preparation for bigger things ahead. This time no climbing, but a fair bit of distance and a little bit of descent. All sounds quite easy doesn't it, and so it would be if the weather behaved as we would have liked. Instead we have another miserable day, not as much fog, but much more rain. We had an option to either take the high road or the low road today. The high road was recommended because of the sensational views, but given that we saw no real potential to enjoy those views we thought that we would descend into the valley and walk that way. As it turns out this was a good choice because the weather really did not improve and the valley we walked through was quite charming and laced with waterfalls (flowing I think as well as they can thanks to the rain). It also meant that we had a chance to visit the Aareschlucht or Aare River Gorge, which is quite a nice natural gorge which has been made readily accessible to us humans through the creation of walkways suspended off, and tunnels blasted into the gorge walls. It sounds like environmental vandalism, and probably is, but as I read somewhere, this is Switzerland, it is a small country which has been inhabited and intensely used by humans for many centuries. You may find tough countryside here, but don't kid yourself that it is wilderness.

Although the walk was all downhill it was quite tough, and made more so by the fact that each signpost we came to pointing to Meiringen seemed to indicate that we had got no closer. Evidently we took interesting rather than direct paths, which would have been fine if we weren't tormented by these diabolical signs. In the course of about three hours we must have encountered 5 signs promising Meiringen to be less than two hours away. Meiringen became for us the town that never arrives. Although eventually of course it did.

Meiringen seems to be famous for essentially two things. The Reichenbach falls just out of town is where Sherlock Holmes and the evil criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty plunged in each other's clutches to their doom. References to Sherlock Holmes abound in this place. There is a Sherlock Holmes pub, a SH statue, a commemorative plaque at the top of Reichenbach Falls, a SH museum and so on.... I believe that each year the Sherlock Holmes society send a delegation to honour their fallen hero, and we saw evidence of such a visit in the form of a wreath laid at the spot where the famous tussle between Holmes and Moriarty took place. What am I saying!!!! No tussle took place other than in the mind of AC Doyle. Holmes did not exist, neither did Moriarty. They are works of fiction. It seems that Italians aren't the only Europeans making a Euro or two from pretending that British works of fiction actually happened. It was quite fun though doing the Holmes things, including the funicular ride to the top of the Reichenbach Falls.

The other thing that Meiringen is famous for is that evidently it is the birthplace of the meringue, and like Holmes, there are reminders of this on every street corner. I think that even the butcher sold meringues. We almost (accidentally) missed out on sampling this piece of history. At dinner we finished our main meal, which was quite large, and there was no sign of a waiter for quite some time, so we assumed there was no dessert at this place and stood up to leave, at which point the waiter rushed over very concerned and insisted that we sit down. You cannot leave now, the best is still to come. This of course was the biggest monster of a meringue you have ever seen, not gooey in the middle like a pavlova, but crispy all the way through and smothered in cream and strawberry ice cream. Yuuuumm. A huge energy injection to get us through the next day (I wonder if this is an illegal supplement - lucky mountain hiking is not covered by the World Anti-Doping Agency).

Day 4 - Meiringen to Grindelwald (28Km distance, 1367 m ascent, 928m descent)

Switzerland in summer is a sensory indulgence for a hiker, full of sights, sounds, smells, tastes and tactile things which are overwhelming. Clearly so overwhelming that they must be exposed progressively and slowly to callow innocents such as us, and we seem to have a protective spirit assigned to ensuring that we do not suffer sensory overload.

Sight is the sense which has been most protected. We have been lucky enough to have wildflowers galore to gaze upon, and up close we have been able to admire the Swiss architecture, and even the cloud and rain have a certain awesome beauty about them, but to date we have been denied the vast alpine landscapes we came to admire.

There are some sounds which are definitively Swiss. The most obvious of these is the ubiquitous cowbell, and we have certainly not been protected from these. It seems that no matter where you are, you are always within auditory range of a cow. Actually it is not only cows, it seems that the only domesticated beasts in this country free of these devices are dogs, chickens and small children. Sheep have tiny bells, goats slightly bigger, calves bigger again and of course mature cows and bulls the biggest of all (although we have seen fully grown men also shackled with bells the size of kettledrums - but more on that later). The other sound that seems almost always to be present is that of running water. It appears that this summer has been unusually wet, so Switzerland is a bit soggy, but notwithstanding this, three seems always to be a rocky and fast flowing stream nearby.

The smells of Switzerland are less definitive. To date for us the smell which predominates is that of cows, which of course includes their fetid discharge, but also the trodden grass, hay and mud, and even the warm breath of the cow (when you pass by close enough). Although you couldn't call these pleasant, strangely there is warmth and comfort in these earthy smells.

Today was the day for our sense of taste to be tantalized, and wonder of wonders, our visual horizons shifted a little. The day started off bleakly, with bits and pieces of drizzle and fog, so off we trudged after our normal Bircher muesli, bread, cheese, jam and croissant Frühstück (breakfast) not in he greatest of spirits. The first part of our journey took us straight up the hill 500m to the top of Reichenbach falls. As we approached the top it started raining quite heavily, so out came the raincoats (I hate raincoats combined with high energy activities, because despite boasting superior moisture wicking and breathing capabilities, raincoats are no match for my enormous propensity to produce sweat, and I become a walking sauna). It wasn't until we had passed the falls that we realised that the rain was in fact spray from the waterfall, and on the other side it was actually not a bad day. The coats came off and our spirits rose somewhat. A little further down the track I noticed a crop of blackberries and bemoaned the fact that they were still red, and so not yet ripe. I decided to pick one anyway, and the closer inspection this act demanded revealed that they were not underdone balckberries but ripe raspberries. Of course I needed to pick a handful (it had been quite an energetic climb and Frühstück was starting to wear off). I stopped, Beth of course did not, so after collecting my feast I needed to catch up. I swear I did fully intend sharing my bush tucker bounty with Beth, but it took such a long time to catch up, and raspberries are quite tempting, and it couldn't bear to see these fragile little morsels turn to mush as I hustled to catch up. So yes, I ate them all.

I am not sure where Beth got her energy spurt from, but I think that the berries helped me to lift my rate a little, and in no time we were moving along at quite a good clip and leaving other walkers in our dust (or more correctly in our wake, given the conditions). One couple we passed was an American couple from Chicago, but not without stopping first for a chat, and to misdiagnose their accent as Canadian. I am not sure whether this is an insult to Chicagoans, but if it was they didn't let on. I thought I did pretty well. Chicago is sort of north, isn't it? This couple was a little younger than us and Also doing the Alpine Pass route, but they were a bit more serious than us in that they were carrying all their gear. We do these walks the lazy way, by just taking day packs and having our luggage transported separately tonour next destination, where hopefully it sits awaiting our arrival.

The climb to the top of Reichenbach falls was difficult, but nothing compared to the next long climb to the Grosse Scheidegg pass which seemed to go on forever, and needless to say, as our altitude increased, so too did the cloud. It was a little better than previous days, but despite knowing we were in amongst them, we still hadn't really seen any mountains, and we were starting to get a little dirty on our protective spirit. When we finally stumbled into Grosse Scheidegg we sat forlornly on a fog shrouded step and attended to our lunch (baguette, cheese and fruit) which took our attention fully. By the time we finished (we were hungry, so not very long) we looked up to see patches of blue sky peeping between the clouds above the Grosse Scheidegg mountain inn. Then we saw bright white high above the inn and stabbing into the patch of blue. Gradually the clouds parted to reveal (for a short time only of course) the most magnificent mountain right beside us (the Wetterhorn). This was the type of scenery that had been hidden from us for 3 days, and it was glorious. As we made the long descent into Grindewald, the mountains finally showed themselves to us (but never all at once). It was a magical feeling walking down into a valley flanked by the Wetterhorn, the Schrekhorn, the Jungfrau, the Mönch and the Eiger.

By the time we reached our lodgings for the night we were exhausted but elated, and were thrilled that our hotel proprietor seemed vey nice and helpful and that our room was wonderfully funky and magical, like the town of Grindewald itself seemed. Did you ever have a time where you had made up your mind about something based on a whimsical notion, only to be disappointed when confronted with reality. I have had many such disappointments, but Grindewald is not one. I have always had this notion of Grindewald being a magical, Christmassy place, a notion I think I formed more from the magical sounding name than anything else. The Grindewald that we walked down into matched my whimsy perfectly.

Day 5 - Resting in Grindewald

The plan for our Grindewald rest day was to visit the Jungfraujoch pass, which at 3,471m is the highest railway station in Europe situated in a mountain pass between the Jungrau and the Mönch. But at about $200 each to get there we wanted to make sure as best we could that we had fine weather. A consultation with our hotel proprietor the previous night convinced us that the weather forecast was pretty good and that we should head up the mountain.

The trip up to the Jungfraujoch is via two cog wheel trains. One from Grindewald to Kleine Scheidegg, and the next one tunnelled through the Eiger all the way up to the Jungfraujoch. A cog wheel train is different to a normal train in that instead of the train wheels on rails providing traction (very steep plus ice and snow means that this just does not work) a cog wheel on the train meshes with teeth on a rail running up the middle of the tracks. Because it was a nice day (after several not so nice days), the train was absolutely jam packed, our hotelier advised us not to be shy when pushing our way into the carriage, otherwise we would be left behind. And our experience with Melbourne (and more recently Paris) public transport made us well qualified to heed that advice. We stopped along the way for everyone to get off the train to look at the "window" cut into the north face of the eiger, which has been used as an escape point for climbers and as a short cut for rescuers. I remember seeing a documentary about the north face, and the window as I recall it was about the size of a door, so I wondered how the hundreds of people on this train were actually going to be able to see it. Well it seems that the little opening of my old documentary has been replaced with about a dozen huge glass windows set right into the vertical walls of the Eiger North Face, so there really was no trouble accommodating the numbers. This process was also helped by the (essentially Asian) tourists who had seats on the train not wanting to give them up just to look at something magnificent. Whilst the views of this famous wall were fantastic, I was a little disappointed. It would have been much nicer to be looking at the icy opening of my documentary with the wind howling in and snow tumbling down outside.

Once we reached the Jungfraujoch we had a veritable theme park to discover. There were certainly the mandatory restaurants and viewing platforms, but also an ice palace filled with amazing ice sculptures, a museum thing, a 3D experience (Ho-hum) and believe it or not an operating snow field. Our very useful hotelier had advised us to make sure we have a look at all these things, but if we wanted to escape the tourists, we could take a walk out in the snow to a mountain hut about 2 Kilometres from the Jungfraujoch. The place was, as expected, teeming with tourists, so we took his advice, and once we had made our way through the main exhibitions, we headed outside to trudge through the snow to the Mönchjochhutte. When we set out there was a fair amount of cloud about and it was quite cold, which made me wonder whether my choice of shorts and a t-shirt was entirely wise, but as we were trudging uphill, it didn't take long to warm up. Then the sun came out, and it was actually the warmest weather we had experienced on the whole trip, and I wondered seriously about removing the t-shirt as well, but thought I would blend in too readily with the snow and risk getting lost, so I didn't. Strangely though, as I was thinking about shedding my final layer, I looked ahead on the path to where a crowd was gathering, and there were three young men standing on the side of the track singing a song, totally naked apart from a funny Swiss hat. I had seen several of these hats earlier in the day, and from underneath each of them I had heard issue a distinctive Australian accent. I knew therefore that these three larrikins where from our shores. My initial reaction was disgust and indignation, but as I have been tending to do more frequently these past few months, I later reflected on their behaviour and recanted a little. Withiout a doubt these were attention seeking boys, but they had big smiles on their faces, they were clearly enjoying life, and while I have no doubt their intent was to shock, I am sure it was not to offend either. All they were looking for was for their merriness to be reflected back from the onlookers. They were breaking nothing, stealing nothing, threatening no one, nor whinging or scowling. Maybe not as terrible as my initial reaction suggested.

Two Kilometres is quite a long way trudging through snow, so when we arrived at our destination, we had indeed left behind all but the hardiest of tourists, which is lucky, because the last little pitch up to the hut was very icy, and caused me to demonstrate some of my slapstick moves, and unlike the aforementioned trio, I did not need an audience laughing at me. Once inside the hut we enjoyed some lovely hot soup and bread, followed by cherry pie and hot chocolate. Very satisfying, and it fortified us for the long walk back, downhill this time so a few more slips and falls along he way. On the way back we passed the snowfield, and Beth filled me with terror by suggesting that maybe we should strap on some skis and have a go down the gentle slope. Luckily she found out that money needed to change hands to do that, after which she lost interest.

We had a fantastic day at the Jungfraujoch, and although the cost was pretty steep, it was worth it. When we returned to the hotel we sat with the proprietor and had a cup of tea and a chat, after which she asked us if we were going to go out later in the evening to watch the celebrations. It seems that we had happened along on Swiss national day which is 1st August, and there was to be fireworks, a cowbell march, yodelling, Swiss horn recitals, and of course speeches by politicians. All those Swiss flags we had seen draped about he place all made sense now (we thought the Swiss were just a very patriotic lot), as did the occasional explosion that we had heard the last couple of days (impatient kids letting off early fireworks - not hunters as we had surmised). We did attend the celebrations and it only added to the magic of Grindewald. The most interesting thing to watch in all of this was the cowbell march, where burly men strapped enormous cowbells around their waists and gyrated rhythmically and suggestively as they marched to create a very loud, but interesting and somewhat soothing noise. This was a really big day for a rest day.

Day 6 Grindewald to Lauterbrunnen (23Km distance, 1286 m ascent, 1523m descent)

Sadly we leave Grindewald. The last piece of advice from our resourceful hotelier was to avoid the tourist hiker route up to Kleine Scheidegg which had been suggested by our tour operator, and instead to take a lesser known, but much more scenic path following the top of the treeline around the mountain, passing under the Eiger North Face and descending into Kleine Scheidegg, from which we would then just walk down into Lauterbrennan some 10 Kilometres further on. It will add a couple of hours, but if you are in good shape you should be ok. This all sounded good, but it did make for our most gruelling day so far (not helped by some bleak conditions crossing under the Eiger North Face), and by the hoteliers standard, I think that we are in reasonable rather than good shape, but we did wobble into Lauterbrennan exhausted, but roughly intact.

Despite the gruelling nature of this walk, it was certainly the most rewarding in terms of scenery. At no stage during the walk were we without the company of the mountains, and the distant views to towns down in the valleys were just wonderful. The mid point of our walk was the Kleine Scheidegg, which is a mountain pass with a superb view of the Eiger North Face. In the early 20th Century there were two major activities conducted here. One was trying to climb the north face, the other was watching the climbers from the hotel balconies at Kleine Scheidegg. Evidently bloodthirsty tourists would come in droves to watch the normally fatal drama of an attempted climb unfold. There were many fatal attempts to climb the North Face before it was finally conquered in 1938. This successful attempt took 3 days to complete. It is now routinely climbed unaided by a crazy class of humans called speed climbers (principally the Swiss pair Ueli Stech and Dani Arnold) in less than 3 hours.

Lauterbrunnen lies deep down in the valley, and after walking constantly steeply downhill along ski runs and mountain bike trails for about 10 Km I can honestly say that downhill is definitely harder than uphill. It kills your knees and destroys your toes as they are constantly pushed down into your shoes. One day we may find the perfect boot for all conditions, but I doubt it. If we do you can guarantee it will be really expensive because it needs to be light, robust, grippy, waterproof, shock absorbent, stop your feet sliding forward, and of course have laces that don't come loose. Oh, snd they need to look good too... So tired by the time we hit Laterbrunnen that we don't bother with any wandering around town, we just collapse in a corner until it is time for dinner (a wonderful feast), after which we fall into bed. Luckily tomorrow is another rest day, and I think that this time we will rest.