On Friday evening I gave my parents a stern talking to, and we all agreed that we were going to make a special effort to get out early on Saturday morning. We were planning to make the most exciting excursion in the entire Bernese Oberland; a journey on the Jungfraujoch railway to 3454m. If the mention of that altitude doesn’t impress you, imagine three Snowdons on top of each other, and you’re not quite there yet

The Jungfrau railway is in my opinion the most amazing feat of engineering ever. Not that I know anything about engineering, but I find it kind of mind-boggling. From Kleine Scheidegg, the hamlet I described at the foot of the Eiger North Face, the train starts its journey upwards, pausing at a small station at the base of the Eiger glacier before entering a tunnel which ascends inside the heart of the Eiger itself, emerging over half an hour and 1500m later at the highest railway station in Europe. What makes it even more amazing in my eyes, is that this railway was proposed at the end of the nineteenth century. Constructed was completed in 1912 after 7 years and a significant number of lost lives in a dynamite explosion. The mainly Italian workforce worked all year round, camping at the glacier station. During the winters they were completely cut off from the outside world, and apparently each autumn 800kg of macaroni had to be carted up the mountain to keep them going

Bit by bit they blasted their way through the Eiger, building the tunnel and various stations en route. There are two stops before you get to the terminus where passengers are able to get out for a brief five minutes and encounter a remarkable view. Two sets of windows have been blasted into the north face of the Eiger, so that visitors have the unique experience of looking down on the valley from inside the mountain itself. The windows, which are visible from Kleine Scheidegg if you have reasonable binoculars and know what you’re looking for, actually have a practical application too, however, providing as they do a starting point for missions to rescue climbers stranded on the Eiger.

The original plan was to build a railway all the way to the top of the Jungfrau, at over 4,100m. By the time the Jungfraujoch was reached in 1912, however, the situation had changed. The original mastermind behind the idea had met an unexpected death, the project had already cost in excess of CHF15m, and the outbreak of the First World War two years later spelled the end for this and many other ambitious Swiss engineering dreams as the stock of European tourists began to dwindle. Various buildings on the Jungfraujoch have come and gone since then, some being destroyed by a mysterious fire in the 1970s, but today there are two main complexes. The first, lower building houses the station, restaurants and gift shops. The other building, known as the Sphinx, is built at 3571m on a rocky outcrop facing the Moench. There there is a viewing galery where you can get magnificant views as far as the Black Forest in Germany in one direction and the Italian Alps in the other. There is also an institute for scientific research, which I believe does some important work both in terms of glaciers, and also houses a weather station. There is even a Swisscom satellite, which means the reception on your mobile phone will probably be better than wherever you’re sitting right now, especially if you’re in Babel’s kitchen

Being at such an altitude is quite a curious experience. The first thing you see when you get off the train is probably a sign telling you to walk slowly in five languages, and it’s true that even with being reasonably young and healthy you can really feel the difference, even compared with being at Kleine Scheidegg. Climbing staircases becomes quite an exhausting experience, and my somewhat out-of-condition parents began moaning even about walking on the flat. Being honest, I spent the whole day feeling slightly lightheaded, as if I had just drunk a glass of wine and had to put a bit more thought than usual into moving one foot in front of another

The view was so spectacular that I can’t really describe it in words, so I’ve attached some of my favourite photos from the day. Yes, in some respects it is very tacky up there. There are significant numbers of Japanese day-trippers and, as in most places in the Bernese Oberland actually, signs are in German, English and Japanese. There are far too many opportunities to buy over-priced cow bells, and blatant attempts to get more money out of people by giving them a brief ride in a husky dog sled or a go on a toboggan, or whatever. But none of that can take away from the sheer beauty of the natural surroundings, as hopefully the photos which I have included will illustrate. The Jungfraujoch is the starting point for the Aletsch glacier, which is the longest glacier in the Alps and certainly a sight worth seeing. Interesting, according to the leaflet which I picked up at the end of the day, the Jungfrau also forms an important watershed. All water to the north flows into the Atlantic, whilst all water to the south flows into the Meditaranean

After lunch we decided to get away from the crowds and into the snow I must confess that I love snow, and the snow in Switzerland is proper snow; cold and dry and fluffy, totally unlike the horrible wet slush we sometimes get in the UK. When the weather is good enough and the glaciers are judged suitably stable, there is a prepared path which leads from the Jungfraujoch to a building called the Moenchsjochhuette, a small mountain hut at 3656m where climbers sleep the night before they attempt ascents of either the Moench or Jungfrau. I’ve wanted to go on this path for years, knowing that it would be one of my few chances in life to get up close to glaciers in a relatively safe environment which wouldn’t involve being roped up or attached to crampons, so I was rather exhilarated when my sister managed to persuade my parents to give it a go

The path is really perfectly easy. That is to say, the path would be perfectly easy if it were located at sea level; it only ascends 200m in total, and I can’t imagine it would take you more than half an hour if you were walking at a normal speed. At this altitude, however, it becomes a genuine challenge. Walking in snow is exhausting at the best of times, walking a significant amount uphill in snow even more so, but at 3,500m we were scarcely able to walk for more than a couple of minutes uphill without pausing to regain control of our breathing. I know I keep saying wherever I’ve been that the views were amazing, but these were definitely the best that I’ve ever seen in my whole life. The glacier was breathtaking – just a few metres beyond the edge of the safe area we could see crevasses which were bigger than my house, and at one point we even experienced a mini-avalanche as a random clump of snow and ice broke off the side of the Moench and came hurtling towards us. Needless to say, the parents started having the heebie-jeebies.

In the end, my sister and I decided to abandon them, and I took advantage of the excellent Swisscom signal to tell them to give me a call if they were going to head back to the restaurant. My sister and I continued upwards, determined that we were going to make it as far as the Huette. At one point we both felt seriously dizzy and I was a bit concerned because I started to experience memory loss (I couldn’t remember words for simple every day objects), but just when we were about to give up we rounded the corner, and there it was on the horizon The last few metres were the most difficult, but we were very proud of ourselves when we finally dragged ourselves up the ladder and onto the terrace.

The Huette was filled with a strange combination of tourists such as ourselves who had wandered over from the Jungfrau, and hard core climbers who had climbed up all the way from Grindelwald. We took photos of each other to prove we’d made it, and then investigated the toilet facilities, which let’s just say were rather primitive and would have been improved by lockable doors. Much to my surprise, my parents eventually showed up, although they didn’t appear to be on speaking terms, each blaming each other for being here in the first place. My Dad appeared to want a cup of tea, then had a bit of a panic attack, seemingly incapable of buying it for himself, and burst into tears…

Once all that kerfuffle was sorted out we really needed to head back down the mountain pronto, because it was already half past four and the last train down was just before six. Luckily it was an awful lot quicker going down in the snow, and all four of us made it in one piece. It was a fantastic day that I certainly won’t forget in a hurry, and undoubtedly worth teh CHF52 it cost me for my ticket

Tags: jungfrau

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 10th, 2008 at 9:49 pm and is filed under Holidays and outings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.