In late April and early May, Freddy and I met the lovely and accomplished Clay and Rain in Tromso for two weeks of skiing on the Lyngen Peninsula. Though our original route didn't go according to plan, we made the most of it and I certainly learned a lot. Rain received an adventure grant for the trip and wrote a fun trip report that's on the Caltopo website - we're famous! Please read more here: https://blog.caltopo.com/2022/07/13/ski-traverse-of-the-lyngen-alps-in-norway-low-vis-and-high-adventure/
We are leaving for a ski traverse in Norway in a month, so Freddy and I needed to do some snow camping and glacier practice. Due to a month almost void of precipitation and a Saharan Dust Event, skiing conditions in the Alps are not inspiring. We settled on going up the Jungfraujoch because (1) that would maximize our time practicing glacier travel, (2) the Eiger, the Mönch, and the Jungfrau form such a stark and inspiring image for skiers and alpinists that I felt the need to see them up close and (3) it’s not every day you take a cog train through a mountain up to 3463 meters!
Saturday started early with a 4:49 train through Zurich HB, Bern, Interlaken, then to Grindelwald. We took the new tricable car up to Kleine Scheidegg, spotting a few parties starting their ascent of the Eiger Nordwand. What an iconic place. From Grindelwald, elevation of about 1000 m, you look directly up at the intimidating North Face of the Eiger. These mountains really slap you in the face with their allure and sense of danger.
As I mentioned, the Alps have had a very dry Spring, which was evident when watching skiers slide down a white ribbon of death past green pastures. With this weird weather pattern, that’s why folks were climbing the Nordwand, which is normally an endeavor for the Fall. We got off the flashy cable car and transferred to the Jungfraubahn, which is tunneled through the Eiger, wrapping around to the Jungfraujoch, a saddle between the Mönch and the Jungfrau. We arrived at 9:41 with quite a few other skiers and alpinists.
We quested up to the Louwihorn, a high point on the ridge past the Jungfrau. The skin track followed a tongue with icefalls on both sides. Because of the lack of snow, the crevasses could be easily spotted, but we roped up anyways. No matter where you go in the Alps, it’s rare to be alone. This day was no exception; the track up to the Louwihorn was a conga line of 50 people. It was extra difficult to pass with ropes and hazard on both sides. Not that I was in any state to pass people!
When I lived in Truckee, I really took for granted how acclimated I was. Now living at 400 meters above sea level, and taking the train up to 3400 m, the air truly felt thin. Add a 40 pound pack to this anemic air, and it was a miracle I made it to the top! A Swiss dad stopped to ask us what we had in our packs. Freddy explained we were snow camping and he looked visibly perplexed as there were 3 huts within a few hours ski. We skied down the Kranzberg Glacier, staying on the left side and avoiding crevasses and an icefall. Ski conditions were even worse than we expected. The Saharan Dust Event from a couple weeks ago had left all the glaciers looking like someone had dumped fire retardant all over them. A minimal layer of wind drifted snow had settled on top, forming a greenhouse effect in the near surface layer. It felt like you were breaking thin glass when you skied on untracked snow. In the areas that received less dust, it was still firm as a rock. The temperature stayed around -10 C for most of the day. With this in mind, you can empathize that Freddy and I could not summon the motivation to heave our packs up another lap, so we decided on a central camp spot, and practiced crevasse rescues for a couple hours.
Crevasse rescue in theory seems really easy; I can point you to many Youtube videos that are less than 10 minutes long, making you think the endeavor is a walk in the park. Though I have not had to rescue anyone from a real crevasse, simulating the experience with Freddy yanking with all his body weight on the rope, somersaulting me backwards until I could dig my edges into the hard snow felt like good practice. Once I stopped myself, I successfully got my ice axe off my pack and dug a snow anchor. I was able to haul him out of the fake crevasse using a 2:1 with my progress capture and tibloc. I am happy I got to practice though I hope to never have to do this in a real emergency situation!
We made dinner, a hearty Three Sister’s Stew with additional couscous, and packed up shop promptly after the mountain cast a shadow on our camp site. At around 10, I woke up very cold. I was wearing everything I had plus Freddy’s puffy. After 30 minutes of shivering and moving my legs, Freddy had had enough. He recently bought a new insulated sleeping pad, which he let me sleep on. Don’t worry, no Freddys were harmed in this swap, he was balmy from bringing his Western Mountaineering 0 degree F bag, which took up a quarter of the tent’s volume.
After disregarding my 6:45 alarm, I told Freddy I would wake up when I was warm. I woke up an hour later to the sounds of ski crampons crunching in firm snow from parties leaving the closest hut. If we’re being honest here, I was moving slow this morning, so we changed our plans to climb a subpeak of Kranzberg. It was a nice 800 meter climb with only a day pack. We got to use our crampons and glacier travel techniques. The summit gave us beautiful views of the largest glacier in the Alps. In every direction, there were glaciers descending down to the valley. The scale of the area was very mind blowing. We looked down on the line we had skied the day before; the crevasses looked even more menacing from above.
We skied down, packed up camp, and started heading back to the Jungfraujoch. Soon Freddy would eat his words that “it would not take more than two hours” to get back to the Jungfraujoch. The station was 650 meters above us, which in normal circumstances would be a walk in the park. What we didn’t account for was (1) the distance (2) how heavy our packs were and (3) the altitude. Heat reflected from all directions as we trudged up the gut of the Aletsch glacier. I was dripping in sweat with my heavy pack while Freddy hummed the bridge to Hey Baby by No Doubt. What added insult to injury was the fact that we could see the Jungfraujoch building, making it look like we were so close, yet it never moved closer. We realized we needed to hurry. I summoned all the strength I had to make the train at 4:50. We ran to the platform, making it at 4:47. There was no train. A helpful attendant let us know that the last train down had left at 4:17; we were staying on the glacier tonight. Curse you Spring Forward! We would have made the train the day before…
I sobbed for a few minutes because I had spent every last drop of physical and emotional energy on that climb. I was completely cracked, and now I had to put my ski boots back on. While I canceled all my Monday Morning meetings, Freddy called the Mönchsjoch Hut, which was another 45 minute walk. I willed my body up to the saddle, while gazing at the South Face of the Mönch, with its stout cornice, widening bergschrund, and sheer ice fall. There were two perfect ski tracks down the middle of it. One day I hope to go back. We made it to the hut just in time for dinner: vegetable soup, alpine Hornli (aka Swiss Macaroni with meat sauce and dried onions), and ice cream with a splash of white wine. We sat with a nice German man, who had lived in Mountain View in 1999. We made some jokes about SGI 🤣 It felt almost wrong to be rewarded by warm food, a bed, and shelter after fucking up trip logistics. Without the hut, it would have been a cold night with no gas left, and only a snickers bar to share. Gosh I'm feeling grateful for Swiss Backcountry Infrastructure! We woke to an incredible sunrise with coffee and Muesli, then headed back to the Jungfraujoch station to take the train home.
Months before boarding a plane to Europe, Maria was already on budget flight sites looking for deals to visit us. Maria is one of the most driven individuals I know, so when she came to stay with us last year for a month to “shred,” I knew she was serious about being a good snowboarder. The same happened this year. She was coming to shred the Alps. In a tizzy of excitement, I booked a room in the Davos Hostel (or as the sign says “The YouthPalace”) in early November before Omicron surged. We were locked into this trip, as we all anxiously tested ourselves before the trip. Negative! Maria hopped on her plane and was off.
Even with a canceled flight and a train misconnection that caused significant delays, the psych was still high as Maria rolled into Davos 7 minutes before New Years. I had a Kleiner Klopfer at the ready for when she got off the train lol. Also, you can buy fireworks at any grocery store in Switzerland, so there were public firework shows as well as little firecrackers going off especially in front of the hostel. We were in bed by 1 am to be ready for skiing and riding the next morning!
I was set on snowboarding, knowing that if there's no pain, there's no gain. Funny enough, that slogan was etched on the bindings of my rental board. It was a good sign. The good times only lasted until we finished taking cute pics at the Top of the Jakobshorn (day pass was 71 CHF), realizing we now had to get down. For context, Maria is a great snowboarder, who polished her craft in her Tahoe Snowboarding crash course last January. As for me, I snowboard once a year, the annual reminder that it’s good to try things you’re bad at even if they make you very sore the next day.
We now had to scrape our way down an icy cattrack. The road to success is a bumpy one where you may need to put life and limb on the line for glory. Thank goodness I was wearing a helmet. It’s also a good reminder of how scary it is to be the slow person on a ski piste. When playing MarioKart, no one asks how the banana peel feels after being run over! I turned off my sense of fear of being hit with a shot of Absolute Vodka.
Left to right: (1) a Schumli Pflumli (2) Maria taking a nap mid mountain after her 25 hours of travel (3) Old men getting served champagne in a hot tub mid mountain surrounded by fake palm trees.
After a few runs, we turned in for lunch near the top of Jakobshorn, or should I say pre-apres? We found Leo Mondale's coveted drink, the Schlumli Pflumli, which is plum schnapps, coffee, and whipped cream. We drank it on these wooden beach chairs overlooking the Graubunden Alps. There were a couple of hot tubs set up with some groups of old men soaking with cigarettes. To our right was where the paragliders were taking off and behind us the smell of raclette wafted from their heating trays. Not exactly Palisades Tahoe High Camp, but certainly an experience!!
Liquid confidence flowing, I really felt like my snowboarding was improving, all until the last run getting into town, I caught my heelside edge and whacked my head backwards, holding back tears as German families passed me with disdain and Maria faithfully laughing at me by my side.
Left: Apres Bar vibes Right: Fred and Maria showing off a particularly dry cider
We finally made it to the bottom, and it was a party! The slope funnels you down into the XC track, which ends across the river from the main Bahnhoff, which is also where the paragliders land and the half pipe is. We lucked out on an outdoor seat at Bolgen Plaza and got some good wine and currywurst. Freddy, who had toured at Pischahorn, showed up and we listened to some headbangers until the sun set over the ridge. We went back to the hostel and rested until we went to dinner at the Hotel Parsenn. I had inadvertently booked us a table at the Apres Bar for the elderly. No one was within 20 years of our age, but they were all having a better time than us dancing in their ski boots to songs like “Sex Bomb” by Tom Jones and Mousse T.
The next day, the three of us went to Parsenn (75 CHF for a day pass). We took a funicular train to the Weissfluhjoch. As you ascend, you can see SLF’s research site and building at the top, which looks like a concrete bunker that could withstand any sort of weather. Very cool to see where a lot of avalanche research happens! We took the tram to the tippy top, and it was an 360 view of the alps. You could see down the Davos valley to Arosa and Madrisa as well. Then we skied one of the longest pistes in Europe (12 km!!). We stopped at the bottom of the gondola, but you can take the piste all the way to Klosters!
We took the train home, a quick 2.5 hours. Watching the ski traffic on the one lane roads going back to Zurich going at a crawl made me even more thankful for train travel. Though the conditions were really icy, I had a great time spending New Years in Davos with two of my best friends!
A fun end to the weekend was that my mom sent pics of when she and my Dad went to Davos almost 30 years ago. Early 90s ski fashion always makes me laugh! Thanks for that Kathy!