Lauterbrunnen, Jungfraujoch

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19. Lauterbrunnen, Jungfraujoch

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Still gloomy and overcast this morning. Well, there isn't much else to do, so I'm going to go ahead and blow the $100 for the insane two-hour train ride up to the Jungfraujoch, the highest train station in Europe at 3454m. When I get to the station at the base, the cams from the summit are — incredibly — showing clear blue skies! At first I figured it wasn't live, but in fact it was, so I kicked myself for not having gotten up earlier in the morning. The clouds were just low ones. Going up through the clouds and tunnels, however, is so dismal that I actually start working on my journal for the first time, to take my mind off the fact that I can't see anything and I'm stuck on this steep little train with a lot of fairly low-brow British tourists. But then... at around 2500m, we break free and emerge into the sunshine above the cloud layer! Of course, only a few minutes later, we plunge into a dark tunnel for the last 40 minutes of the ride up through the middle of the mountain. The train makes a few short stops at places where overlooks are cut out of the cliff faces, and there are incredibly spectacular views of the mountains and glaciers above and the sea of clouds below.

At the top, I walk out of a long tunnel and onto the huge glacier, heading up a path towards a hut about half an hour away. The light here is blindingly bright — more so than anywhere I've ever skied. I find it painful, so much so that I have to close my eyes periodically to avoid the glare. And that's with reasonably dark sunglasses on. The glaciers here are amazing, especially considering it's September — a lot more ice than you get in the Sierra. In fact, 3000m in the Alps seems to resemble something more like 6000m in the Himalayas, but with even more snow here. That makes some sense, considering the latitude; we're at close to 50° in the Alps whereas the Himalayas are around 20°.

At the distant hut I have sausages for lunch with a fantastic view over the edge of the ridge. A nice young student is wearing a Cal hat — Go Bears! (I was a graduate student there.) Even on top of the Jungfrau. But it's only because a friend of his went there. We hike together for a while and visit the sculptures of the Ice Palace, and then he rejoins his tour group. On the way down, I got out above Kleine Scheidegg, to try the hike along the base of the Eiger wall. This was beautiful at first, with the clouds right below my feet and the sheer cliffs above. But the clouds were on their way up, so I soon turned around and waited for the next train.

A little further down, I got out at Wengernalp. This was right in the middle of the clouds, so the undoubtedly spectacular view was invisible. But it was still a lovely (and long) hike down, with lush green meadows and nice dark Christmas trees scattered about. I took a serendipitous wrong turn, further to the left around the edge of the valley walls than I had intended. Soon I realized this trail wasn't even on the map I had! But, it was absolutely spectacular. Once I made it below the cloud ceiling, there were beautiful views of the Lauterbrunnen valley floor and its waterfalls. I came out just next to Trummelbach falls, which tumble through caves within the mountain. The last 100m of descent are an amazing feat of trail engineering, carved out of a sheer cliff, with ropes to hold on to for safety. The entrance to the falls was already closed for the day (18:00). After this hike I was plenty tired, so I rode the bus back down the valley to the village. There are a handful of restaurants to choose from; by far the best one I tried is run by an Australian man, but I don't remember the name now.

Jonathan's Travel Blog :: Europe

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19. Lauterbrunnen, Jungfraujoch

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