Our group was based in two villages for this tour of Switzerland: Saas-Fee and Grindelwald. Grindelwald was easily my favorite. It’s a bigger town than Saas-Fee and it does permit cars, but I still say that these “carless” villages are misnomers since most hotels have their own vehicles that motors around. In my opinion, Grindelwald has the better views – bigger, more expansive, and views of famous sites I’d heard about for a long time. The Bernese Alps are right in front of you, proudly showcasing three major peaks from the city center: Wetterhorn (which is lower, but much more impressive than its Colorado counterpart), Schreckhorn (The Horn of Screams, The Peak of Fright, etc. etc. You have to climb higher along opposite the valley to see the true summit), and The Eiger (no introduction needed). The Monch and the Jungfrau are around the corner past the Eiger and visible from other villages.

(above) Hiking with the hulking northface of the Eiger in the distance, The Wetterhorn

(above) I saw these same flowers in Colorado on Vestal Peak (what are they?), A panorama of the Eiger and environs

We made hikes each day around the area and ultimately ended up touring every one of the high grassy ridges, making for big views. As always the north face of the Eiger dominates the landscape, and, save for the uncanny cloud attracting properties of the face, I was able to enjoy long periods of studying the route. From the Difficult Crack, to the three ice fields, the Death Bivouac, to the Ramp, the Traverse of the Gods, the White Spider, and the Exit Cracks and beyond, I was able to see them all and imagine what it must be like. And I wanted no part of it.

(Above) 1) The infamous “Spider” – the nasty looking prominent ice field in the lower center of the picture. 2) The Eiger as viewed from Kleine Scheidegg. From here, the north face looks particularly inhospitable.

The Mittellegi Ridge, on the other hand, looked stunning and achievable. On our last long hike day, Pat, with his binoculars, was able to spot two small dots approaching the summit from the Mittellegi Ridge. That ridge, by the way, is the long ridge on the left side of the mountain as viewed from Grindelwald or Kleine Scheidegg.

(Above) Various folks studying the Eiger. In the first pic, I’m trying to keep the binoculars steady enough to observe the climbers just arriving on the summit from the Mittellegi Ridge (on the left). This was probably the only day I saw that was good for climbing the mountain.

Highlights of Grindelwald:

1. Reading the White Spider on my hotel room deck with the Eiger’s Nordwand in view. Pretty funny that reading a book makes it to the highlight list, but there was something magical about reading tales of the face and then turning my head and seeing it.
2. The Lauterbrunnen Valley. This is probably the most beautiful valley I’ve seen. There are steep walls on either side with waterfalls cascading down to a perfectly flat and green valley floor.
3. Hiking under the North Face of the Eiger. Got to see the windows, could pick out the Spider, the various ice fields, the Ramp, the Exit Cracks, etc.
4. The Muerren Klettersteig. This is a via ferrat perched high above the Lauterbrunnen Valley, but I’ll save the details (and pictures) for the next post.

(Above) Various hikes in various places. 1) RuthAnn, medicine woman, wants to tame the sheep 2) Christian, our Swiss hiking companing, is always up for posing for a pic. With his witty and wacky humor, he was fun to have along.

(Above) Can you name this mountain now?

It was too bad; the weather forecast was never quite good enough to warrant an attempt on the Mittellegi Ridge. The Bernese Alps are renown for the worst weather in the Alps. The Eiger has aparticularly reputation. On every day but one, the north face was, at some point, engulfed in clouds. However, Michael and I picked another famous Swiss peak to climb. Story coming soon.