PART I : Finally Back and Have time to update from the last two weeks

So then the last two weeks. We picked up Miles from the airport in Marseille and jumped in the car and headed for Switzerland. Our plans were to head up into the Bernese Oberland mountains for a week's worth of touring then head elsewhere.

On our drive, we went from fairly scary French drivers, to a whole new world of scariness of Swiss drivers. To calm our nerves though we did have funny sign posts to look at (Pruden you will appreciate this). So once we had arrived at Grindelwald and had found some accommodation we discovered that the weather forecast was rather miserable for the next few days. On the first day we spent the time practising our crevasse rescue and practising with our avalanche beacons. We all seemed to be able to find the beacons that we buried in the snow pretty quickly which calmed each others' nerves. Picture below of us playing around in the field practising digging and probing for the burried tranceiversDay 2: it was even worse weather so we just mooched around town checking out swiss army knife shops and trying ever so hard to stop Lara buying Swiss chocolate. A mission that both Miles and I failed on. It snowed heavily all day and night.

Day 3: We woke up to even more snow and no chance of getting up into the high mountains as it was full on storming up there. We decided to go to the local ski resort and have a hunt for the powder. What a day was to be had, None of us had never skied in such deep snow in our lives. It was absolutely amazing, once you had worked out that you could not see anything and there was no point trying - we were all hammering down the hill using 'the force'.

Below is Lara - if I could add sound clips to the pictures she would be screaming "WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"The snow was so soft and sugary, it was hard not to smile!Below: this is the start of Lara's transformation into a powder hound! We all finished the day with huge grins and trashed legs. It was still snowing as we cooked in the kitchen of our accomodation at 8pm that night, so we got an early night in preparation for the next powder day.

Day4: Woke up early to find patchy blue sky! Even better we thought, so scurried back up to the lifts. When we got to the top we found a load more snow but very high temperatures. So although the snow was plentuiful, it was not quite the light silly deep snow from the day before. it was still a fantastic day and was great to be able to see where you were going.

Day 5: Weather had completely crapped out on us now, so we decided it was a day for coffee and saving money - as we discovered how expensive a country Switzerland is when they gave us our bill for the beer after the first round there!

Day 6: Our first day of properly nice weather, we rushed down to the guides office to get an up to date weather report, they told us it was still gusting up to 130kph up in the high mountains. So an obvious desicion was made to stay low and wait for better weather. We decided to ski up to the Grosse Scheinhorn. A small Col to the East of Grindelwald.
Above is Dave breaking trail for his new wife, as all good husbands should do.
Here we are at the top with the Wetterhorn in the background. The mountains all around us were incredible and made us all really eager to get up into them properly.
Miles and Dave with the Eiger in the background on the right.

Day 7: We woke up today with pretty rubbish weather and the idea of us being able to get up to the high mountains faded. After looking at all the available forecasts for the area on the internet it looked like the day after we might be able to go up. With spirits low we decided we would go up any way and see what it was like, the thought of wondering around Grindlewald for another day and drinking expensive beer was not a good one. So we packed up all our bags checked out and made our way down to the train station to get the Jungfraujoch train up high.

To any who have not heard of this train, it is a piece of Swiss engineering genius. It was built just before the second world war and is a train that winds itself up inside the mountain of the Eiger. After having small heart attacks from buying the train tickets (very expensive!) we got on the train.
Praying that the weather would be kind to us as we did not want to have to pay for it again. Half way up it stops at viewing windows which are half way up the North face of the Eiger, for those who are reading this with an interest in climbing, you will all be well aware of the massive history of these windows as the brave and stupid have gone out them / come in them to on attempts to climb this scary looking face. When we got there we got out the train expecting to see nothing but cloud. We were greated with this........


An amazing temperature inversion!!!!! Our spirits were raised and the train ride to the top was made in massive excitement. On arriving to the top the weather was far better than expected. blue skies and the wind was bearable. thank God for that!

Us at the top standing in front of the Monch. So after walking through the maze of tunnels at the top of the station (which took 20 minutes) we finally found our way outside and got our skins on, we were going to make our way up to the Monchjochhutte to stay the night. It was around 2pm. it took around an hour to get across to the refuge and we decided we had enough time to go and climb to the top of the Monch before dinner.

So off we went, we got 3/4 of the way up before we decided that we were going to miss dinner in the refuge if we carried on to the top.


Picture of Miles and Lara on the ridge just before the rock step at 3930m when we decided that our stomachs were more important than getting to the top.
returning to the refuge to fill our bellies.

I think I will give up on the days, as it is confusing me now. The next day, after a restless night for Dave, I didn't sleep very well as the refuge was at high altittude and I didn't feel too good in the morning we decided it was wise to lose altitude and head off down the Emigschneefald glacier to the Konkordiahutte refuge for the next night. A rather short day, but the views of the surrounding mountains were fantastic as we skied down the glacier and through the serac fields.


After getting to the bottom of where the hut was we decided to stop and have a bite to eat.
Behind us is the Aletschgletscher - the largest glacier in Europe (a walk that was later on in the week to ruin our feet, but I am yet to get to that part!). So once we had sat around in the sun, ate some food and soaked in the surroundings we decided to tackle the remainder of the climb.
Above in the red circle the Konkordia hut can been seen. When it was first built the galcier was right up to it, but over the years as the glacier has been shrinking, it has got higher and higher off the glacier floor. So to get to it we had to climb up 270 stairs that have been bolted to the wall below it, we all had a good huff and puff to get up to it and was greated with a fantastic terrasse and a couple of lovely beers!

A 6am start the next day saw us skinning up the Grunhornbucke pass to get over onto the Fieschergletscher. The weather was not great with visibilty down to about 50m or so.
At the top we had a descent onto the actual glacier itself and the weather started to clear a little so we decided on another 2hour skin up to the top of the Wyssnollen (3600m). This was a fantastic climb up. the Clouds were coming in and out all the way up.


When we got to the top we had luck to get a clear patch to ski down in.



Would like to thank Miles for this picture as I thought it would be impossible to get a picture of us both skiing together! So once back down the glacier floor, we skiied across the glacier and a short climb up to the Finsteraarhorn Hut. Were once again we sat outside and drank a few beers admiring the views and looking at our ski lines down the Wyssnollen. The view was brilliant; below is the view from the balcony with the Gross Grunhorn in the background.

Just found out this post is too long so will post this and continue with part II .