13 July 2009 The Gleckstein Hut
We caught the bus in town, which cost £25 each for a return ticket. We decided that it was worth it when we got dropped off next to the path about 30 minutes later. It would have been at least 2 hours walk.
The path up to the hut is very good at first, almost a goat track through the middle of a cliff. The path then turns a corner above an old cable car station and becomes a normal mountain path going into the valley high above the bottom of the glacier. There are very impressive waterfalls on the other side of the valley and, for a bit of variety, the path goes underneath a small waterfall which is very refreshing.
It was a very hot, humid day so we both sweated and suffered and we were glad to arrive at about half past two. The hut looks fairly new and is very tidy. The guardian is a middle aged lady, which is a nice change from the grumpy old men in some other hut. She has pots of Edelweiss dotted around on the terrace and keeps chickens.
The hut has a fantastic view down to Grindelwald and up to the Schreckhorn and the Lauteraarhorn. The seracs of the Grindelwaldgletcher can be seen below and the rumble of avalanches is heard several times an hour as huge lumps of ice cleave from the glacier. We spent the afternoon lounging around on the sunny terrace. One of the other climbers provided a bit of entertainment by falling asleep on the ground, then being pecked on the toes by the local cockerel. The guardian chased it away by pouring water on its tail, but the persistent bird was back 5 minutes later for more toe pecking. The hut even has a shower, so before dinner, we invested SFR 5 and had a lukewarm shower. I’ve never been so clean at a hut – luxury.
Dinner was served at seven o’clock. There were two groups of people staying at the hut. The walkers (like us) and the “real” mountaineers who were going to climb the Wetterhorn (3692m, AD-, mostly scrambling). We were segregated into two separate rooms; neither group spoke to the other – we were obviously beneath them.
After dinner, I popped outside and saw my first Marmot which was lurking around just outside the hut wall. When it saw me it popped up on its hind legs and then ran off. I watched it for a few minutes and then saw it jump up and disappear into a shed a short distance away from the main hut. I mentioned it to the guardian later and she said that she knew about it and that it was a lazy Marmot that couldn’t be bothered to dig a hole.
The rest of the evening’s entertainment was watching the Ibex arrive for their evening salt lick. The guardian’s little girl put salt out on a nearby rock and the wall surrounding the hut. The wild animals were unfazed by the presence of people, although they didn’t like the flashes of cameras.
The guardian told me that the Chrinnenhorn was a straightforward walk with no need for any gear. Ah well, at least we would be able to leave our gear at the hut in the morning. Breakfast was to be at seven o’clock, so we went to bed at half past nine. I lay there for ages trying not to cough – bloody cold won’t go away.
14 July 2009 The Chrinnenhorn
The alarm went off at seven o’clock and we were the first people up (apart from the “Wetterhorners” who had left at 0430.) We had a leisurely breakfast – orange juice, cornflakes, solid bread with jam and hot chocolate. In another nice touch, the guardian had provided a jug of water with some rose quartz crystals in the bottom which is supposed to provide energy.
We left the hut at about eight o’clock and started the walk up to the Chrinnenhorn (2736m). It was a straight-forward walk up a path, a short walk across a snow field, a slide down the snow and up a scree slope to a small col. From there it was a short scramble to the top taking us about one and quarter hours. The view from the top was very good but the climb was disappointingly short.
We walked back down to the hut, picked up all the gear that we had left behind and started to walk back down at about eleven o’clock. The walk down was pleasant apart from the normal aching knees and the rucksack getting heavier and heavier. On the way down we met a Japanese couple walking up. This was unusual - there are a huge number of Japanese tourists in Grindelwald, but very few are seen on the mountain paths. I said “Kanichiwa” to the guy and immediately got a huge smile.
Half way down, I checked the bus times and there was one at 1220 and another at 1340. I estimated that we would have no chance of catching the 1220 bus. However, we walked a lot quicker than I thought and reached the corner of the valley above the old cable car station at about noon. We could see the bus stop below us. Glenys read my mind and said that she wasn’t going to run for the bus, so we sat on a grassy patch at the edge of the cliff and had our sandwiches.
After 15 minutes, we were bored at looking down at Grindelwald, so set off again. Half way down, I could see the path going down to the Hotel Wetterhorn which had been closed by the avalanche. It didn’t look that bad – only a short section of the path was affected. We were going to be at the bus stop about 45 minutes early, so we agreed that it would be better to walk down the path to the Hotel Wetterhorn and catch the bus there.
The path was a little overgrown but pretty good down to the avalanche. It had been a snow avalanche that had stripped the soil from a slope high above and then ripped up trees on its way down to the path. There was about 50 metres of the path covered in the debris, which consisted of frozen snow, soil, rocks and trees. I started to pick my way across, climbing over trees and rocks. It wasn’t particularly easy. I started down one steep patch that appeared to be soft soil. As I stepped on it, I discovered that it was actually about 2 inches of soil over frozen snow. My feet went straight from under me and I slid down the slope on my backside. I was covered in mud, embarrassed, but uninjured. Glenys was not impressed.
Having managed to negotiate the rest of the avalanche debris without further incident, the rest of the path down was lovely, going through woods and alpine meadows covered in flowers. We stopped at a stream so that I could wash off the mud and then emerged into civilisation at the Hotel Wetterhorn where we treated ourselves to an ice-cream and a coke.
We caught the bus back to town where I went to the Information office to check on the weather. It looked to be generally good tomorrow, good on Thursday and thunderstorms in the afternoon on Friday. On the way back to the campsite, we decided that it would be better not to have a rest day tomorrow, but to go straight up to the Monch Hut and take advantage of the good weather on Thursday. We didn’t have to go up until the afternoon, so we thought that we would spend the morning going up to the First cable car and having a short walk to the Bachsee lake, which is supposed to have a stunning view of the Wetterhorn reflected in the water.
Back at the campsite, we sorted out our gear and repacked our rucksacks ready for tomorrow. I tried to cut down on the weight, but all I could manage was to leave out my soft shell jacket (0.6 kg) and reduce my rack down to 6 nuts, 1 ice screw and four slings with screw-gates. Glenys did a washer load of clothes; we had a few snacks and went into town. The weather was very hot and humid and we sweated buckets walking up the hill. We have a very nice meal on a terrace of a hotel looking up at the Eiger.
We were now ready to Climb The Monch at 4107 metres altitude.
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