SnowSlider - Blogging From the mountains by ise

I had a meeting in Kandersteg which I’d postponed from last week due to my flu. I’ve wanted to walk from Kandersteg to Adelboden for some time so this was a perfect chance and the weather forecast looked ideal. When I arrived in Kandersteg it was actually pretty cold and there was a frost down in the valley, it’s one of those steep valleys that trap in cold air so it’s cold before the sun reaches the floor.

I would probably have walked up from Kandersteg but after taking some time out for the meeting and allowing for the fact my flu isn’t quite gone I decided to ride the lift up the first section and reduce the ascent to 600m. Stepping off the lift it was suddenly much warmer, the sun was out and I’d soon taken my jacket and was climbing in shirt sleeves. I’d also overestimated the effects of my flu and I was climbing around 12m/min so I decided to alter my route and take in the summit of the Bunderspitz at 2546m and increase the total ascent to 970m.


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click on photograph for larger version

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.

click on photograph for larger version

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 !

Google Earth File

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The baloon festival at Château-d’Oex was stil on this weekend so I was trying to avoid getting caught up in the traffic again. On Saturday I’d been to Villars which was not operating fully due to wind and ended up back home at La Berra for a few hours. So, Sunday we decided to go to Adelboden.

The slight downside with Adelboden is, by local standards, it’s relatively busy. Being one of the closest stations to Berne and the favoured destination by most people round that way then you can wait a few minutes for lifts sometimes. Fortunately, they operate a good single line on most lifts so you can get around quite quickly.

Some idea of how busy can be seen from this :

Or getting off one of the lifts:

One problem is that they’ve such a strong local accent and dialect I can’t understand a word they say

Adelboden/Lenk’s one of largest ski areas near home and is pretty much fully open right now with excellent snow both on the pistes and the roads to get there

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