Grindwald. Another Zermatt type place with loads of slanty eyed tourists, but despite this quite a nice place and a good campsite overlooking the whole valley.
The weather was a bit grim. Cloud and rain in the afternoons but forecast to be OK tomorrow morning. £110 train ride up to the Jungfraujoch via the impressive windows overlooking the North Face of the Eiger – what a tip that place is, a mouldering pile of choss. We took the last train of the day. Rather odd being the only one on the train, bloody erie wandering around the deserted tunnels of the Jungfraujoch, really scarey stood next to the tunnel exit with huge steel doors separating the darkness of the tunnel from the misty glacier. Scarey because the noise of the wind howling through the gaps in the door. We were supposed to be camping out over night on the glacier but I was buggered if I was spending the night out there in the tent.
Plucking up courage I cracked the door open and got buffeted by the wind rushing into the tunnel – oh my god what had we done ? I was rather puzzelled therefore when I stepped outside and walked a couple of meters from the tunnel to be in complete calm. Not a breath of wind. Hey weird. Kind of strange but I guess that it must have been the pressure difference.
Once outside on the glacier we wandered along the pisted track in the mist. Really strange not knowing what we around us and more alarming was the warm temperature. It wasn't going to freeze tonight and at 3800m that is really unusual and quite dangerous too if your in the wrong place.
We pitched the tent up right next to the track using a couple of the marker poles to secure the tent. The snow was so soft that it was hard to see how it would stay up if the wind really did get up. Then the rain started. Rain ? At this height – bizarre. Throughout the night the seracs were crashing down and sounding so close. Some were just behind us and others were across the valley – all of the sounded like they were going to come ripping through the tent. A fairly sleepless night. The mornings inspection revealed the nearest activity about 400m away.
The grand plan was to climb the Jungfrau and, if there was time, to climb the Monch too. At 4am the alarm went off. Poking our heads out of the door to mist and snow that was so utterly not frozen we just lay back down and dozed some more. At 5am voices and foot steps trooped by towards the Jungfrau. At 6am some more wandered by. Odd people climbing mountains in these conditions, I thought. By 6:30am so many had wandered by that the sheep effect took place – if there going, we're going too, albeit up a safer route.
By 6:30am we had had tea and, having deemed the Jungfrau too laborious and dangerous in these poor conditions, were walking along the track towards the Monch, the soft snow making it hard work. Joining the South East ridge of the Monch just before reaching the Monchhutte, we scrambled up the rocky ridge avoiding snow patches. Some good solid rock steps kept it interesting even though there was no view. The ridge was quite board initially but soon narrowed to a knife edge snow arete the width of two boots side by side, fun, fun, fun.
By this time the crampons were on. Not because it was icy, more to get secure footing on the slushy snow, a slip here would be rather too interesting ! The person who hasn't fallen would have to jump the opposite side; choosing the right side to jump is OK if your at the back, a little harder if your in front.
The ridge gave alternating rock steps and snow aretes and so was quite interesting even though it is an easy route. The top section leveled off but still required a lot of concentration because it effectively traversed the top of the North Face and therefore fell steeply away beneath your feet.
We reached the summit in cloud getting only a glimpse of the back of the Eiger, however, on the descent the skies mostly cleared and the views down the Aletcher Glacier and across the upper glacier basin to the cloud capped Jungfrau were amazing.
Trevor
Sept 99