This is a local or Swiss thing, the route over the Lötschenlücke is reckoned to be a sort of Swiss vallee blanche which might be about right as a Swiss version would probably involve a couple of hours climbing and the use of public transport. The Lötschenlücke itself is a high pass between the Bernese Alps, connecting the Lötschental valley to the Aletsch Glacier in the canton of Valais.

I decide to leave my car in Spiez and take the 0556 train to Interlaken before switching to the Jungfrau trains changing at Lauterbrunnen and Kleine Scheidegg, this makes sense as on the return I can hop off the train at Spiez and be home earlier. This being Switzerland of course there’s a fair few ski tourers boarding the train already.

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Looking back the signs for the day didn’t look so good. I’d arrived at Grindelwald at about 0645 in plenty of time for the first train and sat in the car with a cup of coffee from my Thermos. But, looking up the mountain I was already beginning to think the clouds on the summits were heavy and maybe more than were going to clear during the day. The next surprise was that due to some confusion at the guides office the person I’d been expecting to join for the climb had pulled out earlier in the week and the guide had been expecting just one client. After some discussion we decided to make a group of three but the other client had some concerns about his fitness before we left.The plan was to climb the normal route of the Mönch, that’s the south-east ridge passing the minor summit and then moving on the main summit at 4109m. The Mönch is one of the big three summits of the area, the others being the Eiger and the Jungfrau. Legend has it the Jungfrau, or virgin in German, is protected from the Eiger or ogre by the Mönch or monk.


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