This is the second day of my tour of the Gemmipass area, I’d stayed the night in Leukerbad and took the lift up again the next morning. Leukerbad has a fairly amazing position under some huge rock walls and there’s a completely mad track from the village up to the Gemmipass.

This was cut out of the rock face during the early 1740′s so serve as a mule track and trade route. It’s staggering to think someone must have stood down in Leukerbad and thought they could see a way to make a track up the cliff !

The path looks so amazing that I regretted slightly not descending the previous day, in general if there’s one available I take the lift down as it saves a bit of stress on the knees though.

After admiring the early morning views over to the Matterhorn and Weishorn area I headed round the Daubensee for the Rote Chumme (above right) another high pass at 2628m.

Heading up the Rote Chumme (above left) at around 2400m the path just seems to vanish, in fact it looks alarmingly like it heads into vertical rock and I had concerns it was going to turn into a via ferrata that I just wasn’t carrying the kit for. Fortunately, the path takes a sudden hairpin right and after a fairly thin traverse threads up to the Rote Chumme where I pause for a drink and look over to the Chindbettijoch. Around here is the border between the Valais and Bern cantons.

It’s pretty wild up this high, the last sheep are down grazing at around 2500m and there’s not much up here, some neve snow and rock is about all. By now people are arriving at Rote Chumme having hiked over from Chindbettijoch.

After dropping down a few hundred metres to the foot of the Tälligletscher and carefully crossing debris and a couple of glacial run-offs I gain the Chindbettijoch and take some more photographs before taking a decision to traverse the Engstligengrat to the Tschingellochtighorn at 2735m, don’t these names just fall off the tongue ?

Above right is a good view back to the ridge I’d traversed the previous day.

Above right is the Altels (3629m) and you can clearly see were the glacier came off in 1895 as I mentioned the previous day. Above left is a view back over Rote Chumme to the Weisshorn and Bishorn near Zinal. This is around 40km away and if you click on the photograph you can see the track from the Tracuit hut to the summit of the Bishorn.

Finally I reach Tschingellochtighorn, there’s no simple way to the very summit and I cross underneath to descend the loose slopes below to Engstligenalp and the lift down to Unter dem Birg. From Unter dem Birg I enjoy an ice cream while waiting for a bus to Adelboden for a connection to Frutigen and the train back to Bern.

The Gemmipass is a trade route between the Valais and Bern cantons dating back to the early 1700′s when the mule track was cut into the rock faces above Leukerbad. The pass itself is pretty high at 2322m before dropping almost vertically into Leukerbad.

Kandersteg is somewhere I’ve not visited much, most recently I’ve passed through on the train to enter the Lötschberg Tunnel, this is the modern trade route between Bern and the Valais. This area has massive rock walls and steep slopes and the scenery is stunning. I’d taken the train from home via Bern and then direct to Kandersteg. This is pretty popular, there’s two trains taking the same route within two minutes of each other and they were both over 80% full, people with hiking and climbing gear heading for Kandersteg, changing at Speiz for the Jungfrau area or heading through the Lötschberg for the Valais.

I’d not fully decided what route to take until I arrived in Kandersteg. The simple option is to hike up to Sunnbüel at 1934m and then head straight over the pass the the Gemmipass itself. Taking the lift to Sunnbüel is an option but it cuts the hike too short. In the ten minutes I took to walk from the train station I decided to ride the lift to Sunnbüel but instead of taking the normal route I would climb the Gällihorn and traverse the Uschenegrat ridge before descending to the Schwarenbach Hotel for some lunch.

This is the first day of a two day route, after arriving in Leukerbad the next is from Leukerbad to Adelboden.

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