Hiking tour in Switzerland

Tuesday, September 5, to Griesalp

I’m glad this is rated a C tour – it would be terribly embarrassing to do something as difficult as we did today, then discover it was an A hike.

We awoke to a clear, crisp day. Took the funicular, a one-car train; the car itself is built on about a 45° angle, with six separate passenger compartments, the first shared with the driver. There’s an exterior deck on the downhill side, where they can load crates of merchandise. Today’s run included bottles: empties down, fulls up.

The track merely guides the car; it is powered by a cable. Two cables run side-by-side; halfway up, the track doubles for a hundred meters, so the up-bound and down-bound cars can pass each other. It rises 700 meters in perhaps one kilometer of horizontal run. How steep is that? Well, there are steps (not a path) along the entire track, for maintenance workers. And the map shows a hiking trail with the same start and end points, covering about twice the horizontal distance, and probably pretty damn steep!

At the top, we changed to a more conventional train – really almost a streetcar. A single car, to Mürren. The rails on this route are not continuously welded – how quickly we forget that all trains used to go thump-thump every few seconds.

Mürren is on the edge of the cliff, 800 meters above the valley floor. I bet mothers here don’t send their kids out to play in the street… Maybe it’s a standard nightmare here to fall off the edge – and not just for children! (But having said that, the first thing we saw as we walked through the town was a four-year old alone on the street in his pedalcar, doing a fairly good job of imitating a two-tone emergency vehicle siren.)

The bank thermometer said 6°, a clear crisp day. As we set off, we saw a helicopter ferrying something up from the valley. Up and back, up and back, not wasting any time at all. Best guess: ready-mix concrete. You can see why things are expensive here!

We climbed for a while, a sunny meadow across from the high mountains with their glaciers. I admit I was hoping for a massive avalanche while we were watching this one, but it was not to be.

After a while, we rounded a point, and began a long traverse parallel to the mountains and the gorge, and almost level. A very gentle climb, got us into patchy, fresh soft snow. The snow is clearly recent: the vegetation came right through it, fresh and green. Today is the first time my feet have been wet – clearly too much to expect to hope for dry feet in all this mud and snow – but they aren’t cold.

We hiked around behind Piz Gloria, the revolving restaurant at the top of Schilthorn showcased in the James Bond movie On her majesty’s secret service. What we saw was bare cliff, not a romantic ski slope.

Began the climb out toward Sefinenfurgge (we also saw signs Sefinenfurke – I suspect it’s the Sefinen Forks). Muddy and steep, slow going. More snow. Stopped for lunch on a rock sticking up from the snow. I had a loaf of bread from the grocery store yesterday, and some Tilsit cheese. Even in the open air, this was really stinky cheese! We ate it all and liked it! Jacky saw a marmot. Only one we saw during the entire trip.

While we were eating, all the other hikers had passed us. We could see a group of seven ahead of us for much of our climb. The snow got deeper, soft and sticky. We were very slow, not just because of the grade, but because Jacky doesn’t like putting her weight down until she’s sure of her footing. And this is almost impossible on a steep rocky trail covered knee-deep with snow. Not for her the semi-controlled scramble.

It was getting on toward mid-afternoon, and we still had a long way to go to reach the crest. I was beginning to worry that we might not make it all the way. We have space blankets, and information about some overnight spots nearer than Griesalp, so we don’t absolutely have to make it – but it was becoming less than fun.

The good part is that although there was thin high cloud, it was warm and there wasn’t much wind. Bad weather could have turned this into a real problem very quickly. They say this route is impassable in snow or bad weather, and I believe them.

The last section before the crest is very steep. All you can see is the trail in front of your face – and it comes as something of a surprise when you suddenly see over the crest! It’s another narrow knife-edge summit, slate cliffs all around. Stopped long enough for a photo, then started down. We need to be off this mountain.

The descent was worse than the ascent, dangerous as well as difficult. Very steep, probably 100% grade even on the traverse, and covered with snow. Part of the trail had a cable rail; that was the easy part, since we could basically rappel down the cable. The thick sticky snow wasn’t too bad, since you could kick steps in it with your boots. Besides, if you fell, you wouldn’t get hurt (as long as you fell along the traverse, rather than down the gradient). The difficult parts were the exposed rock, partly covered with snow, no visible support, and steep dropoffs. And the slate cliffs are in a state of continuous rockslide – small stuff, but discomfiting.

It took a long time to come down that slope. Clouds drifting up from the valley created complete white-out conditions from time to time. The only good thing about any of this is that it isn’t blowing, snowing, raining or cold.

Finally we reached the rim, perhaps 400 or 500 meters down from the crest, still above 2000 meters. Over the rim, the gradient was even steeper, but the snow mostly disappeared, and the trail had adequate switchbacks. Muddy and a bit slippery, but we could cope with that. Slowly, no doubt that we’ll make it to Griesalp, though we’ll be late.

Now that life and limb are out of danger, it’s okay to enjoy the scenery again. And worth seeing. A vertical fault, waterfalls everywhere. I don’t know how many we saw this week, not worth even trying to count – and besides, Jacky points out that you can never see the same waterfall twice. As a matter of fact, you can’t even see the same waterfall once.

The cows were out in force. They see enough people they’re not a bit afraid of them. One of them, blocking the trail, only moved when I invaded her personal space, closer than a meter. Another didn’t even move then – I had to nudge her out of the way with my walking stick – shaft, not point.

It was well into twilight when we got down, about 6:15. Our written instructions said Kurhotel Griesalp. Our other written instructions said Griesalp Hotel. The town, a collection of half a dozen buildings, has one hotel, the Berghotel Griesalp. Not to worry – they’re all the same thing. This is a very simple hotel, primitive. One bath and shower down the hall, shared by the whole floor. Hot water heating, but the water was only hot if they built a wood fire (the woman said they would if they got to it, but they didn’t). No complaints – much better than spending the night on the mountain.

Maybe we really do qualify as experienced hikers, suitable for a C route: even when we took on something beyond our capabilities, we had enough time and energy margin to complete the hike successfully, and backup resources that would have kept us alive, if not comfortable, overnight. But all that time in the snow gave us both sunburns. Hard to think of everything – and reflected UV was the least of our concerns.

At dinner, the guide told us the weather was deteriorating, and tomorrow’s planned route would be even worse than today. He had a brochure outlining the Nordrampe alternative, which went around the shoulder of the mountain instead of going over it. Sounds like a really good idea!

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