SnowSlider - Blogging From the mountains by ise

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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.

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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 !

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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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