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.


  Read the rest of this entry »

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.