At the Foot of the Eiger

This is where Ben and I spent our 41st wedding anniversary on July 1st, at the foot of the Eiger, in the Hotel Bellevue des Alpes, dating from 1840, at Kleine Scheidegg, Switzerland. (Note, it is not pronounced "shindig".) You'd have trouble finding it on a map.  It's a 45-minute train ride up from Lauterbrunnen and the jumping off point for mountaineering in the "Top of Europe".  

The Jungfrau is the tallest of the three mountains above Europe's largest glacier, keeping company with the Eiger and the Monch. With a summit at 13,642 feet, it doesn't compete in height with the Fourteeners of Colorado.  But it is mountaineering in a true alpine environment amid amazing beauty, and the Jungfrau region continues to be a magnet for adventurers, including my Ben, who decided that he wanted to try climbing the Monch.   Alternatively, you can buy magnets in the gift shop.

Kleine Scheidegg is really just the hotel, a few snack bars and the train station.  But what a train station!  Trains run in and out all from 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., ferrying hikers and mountain climbers to their adventures.  They are almost overwhelmed by the large groups of tour groups (mostly foreign) who disembark from the train at Kleine Scheidegg and immediately embark on the train to the Jungfrau, or visa verso, depending at what stage they are in their all-day trip to Europe's highest point.   The station is a sea of people and a wave of noise from the loud speakers constantly announcing the comings and goings of the trains.  But at 6:30 all the bedlam stops and just a few people remain to spend the night.  Ben and I were among them.  

This photo shows the train station as seen from our hotel room.  The expanse of gray shingles is the patio off our room.  You'd better not have too much to drink for dinner and then go out there to see the stars because there are no railings!  

Actually, there were few stars the two nights we were there.  Instead we had big lightening storms, very dramatic with strong winds blowing through slamming shutsthe doors and shutters!  The drama of the storms and the overall lack of people around made the nights delightfully creepy.  

The hotel has been owned by one family for many generations and has a wonderfully stodgy air about it.  The price includes a full breakfast and a four-course dinner which begins with consummé.  You remember consummé don't you? No? Well, it's a clear broth usually of veal or beef which takes hours to make in the classic style.  The waiters wore white suits and Ben and I got out of our hiking attire for the occasion.  The hotel has no tv or wifi, so after dinner we played pool and went to bed early.

Here's our anniversary portrait with the Eiger in the background on the left. 

And the Jungfrau.  The water feature in the front is part of a memorial to the many climbers who have died on the Eiger and it's also used to make snow in the winter for skiing.  See that train shed on the left running up the mountain?  That was the path of the Jungfrau train, first built in 1912.  Hard to believe that they had the engineering know-how that early to get a train all the way up that mountain, and much of it through tunnels.   

We spent a full day hiking in this beautiful area, logging twelve miles on the well-maintained but rugged "mountain trails," which are run closer to the base of the mountains than the paved trails. 

Ben was delighted when the duct tape he had wrapped around our hiking poles to use in case of an emergency actually was needed to temporarily repair a pair of hiking boots owned by a hiker we had passed earlier on the trail.  The soles had "blown out" and as we approached her she asked, "Do you think this will fix it?" as she held up a roll of scotch tape.  Well, no.  But our duct tape did!   Smiles all around.

The big event was Ben's climb up the ridge of the Monch.  You can see it in the middle of this drawing, where the snow falls off to the right and there's clearly rock on the left.  

You can also see the ridge clearly in this photograph which I took before I got too scared to watch anymore and took a train down the mountain to have some fun below.

If you were to greatly enlarge this photo, you'd spot two tiny specks near that ridge.  That would be Ben and his Swiss mountain guide, Marc.  They had to cross that big field of snow in the center of the image before reaching the ridge, which was quite a job since it was very unstable and kept shifting.  (I know for a fact because I quickly gave up my own attempt to hike something similar that day even though I had cleats and hiking poles.)  Ben reports that when they'd stop to rest now and then Ben would drink some water and eat a power bar while Marc smoked a cigarette!  After three hours they were about 2/3 up and Ben decided to call it quits while he still had energy to get back down in the daylight and with style.  He'd enjoyed his adventure and had all he wanted, so he made the decision to call it a day.

I was so glad when he texted me that they were at the train waiting to come down.   It was time to leave this part of the Alps and head across the valley to the car-less town of Murren.