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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I took the gondola from Grindelwald village at 1000m up to First at 2168m. My plan was to walk to Grosse Scheidegg on the north of the Schwarzhorn via Hagelseeli, Häxeseeli and the Blau Gletscherli. Really the Blau Gletscherli is not so much a glacier but more névé, that’s to say it’s snow left from the winter and has melted, refrozen and compacted down. Even so, this is traditionally early season for these slightly higher routes and it’s hard to know how snow and ice you might encounter.

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There’s a Google Earth file / GPS file here : 2007 07 01 Grindelwald.

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After ski touring in the Matterhorn area last weekend it seems appropriate that this weekend I took a ski tour in the Jungfrau region near the Eiger. The target of the trip was the Lötschenlücke starting from the Jungfraujoch and taking in the Aletsch and Lang Glaciers before a descent into the Lötschental (above) and onto Blatten for a bus and train trip back to Interlaken. This takes in an area that makes up part of the Jungfrau-Aletsch-Bietschhorn UNESCO World Heritage site and is a heavily glaciated area.

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I have produced another GPS track file showing the route we took from the Jungfraujoch.

Google Earth Track File

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Unfortunately, although it was quite a nice day the snow really wasn’t very good at all. There had been some fresh snow overnight although I’d guess not a lot more than had fallen by the time I left yesterday.

We skied over by Kleine Scheidegg towards Wengen but the snow wasn’t really better over there at all.

In fact, as you can see it’s pretty bare as you get down to Wengen although the main problem is the heavy snow, it’s very hard work to keep moving it around with the skis.