Hello againThank you for coming back to this blog despite a fairly long lapse in posting. I was busy going places, entertaining visitors, spending time with family, staying away from the computer over the holidays.
But now life has returned to fairly normal. So much so that I need to remind myself of days spent in the mountains. Snowshoeing has been one of the activities I've enjoyed a great deal these last few weeks. Here goes.
On Saturday, December 22, 2007, my friend Th.B. and I joined a guide for a snowshoe tour. A guided tour for snowshoeing? Well, Th. had never done it, I had only done it a couple of times, so we were hoping to pick up a few good hints about gear and technique.
What we had signed up for was a leisurely "granny" hike, an hour and a half up a gentle hill, an hour's picknick in the sun, and another ninety minutes' hike back to base.
Which was Berghaus Gurnigel, a mountain restaurant in the area beyond Riggisberg and Schwarzenburg, at the foot of the Stockhorn chain of mountains. The whole Gurnigel area is extremely popular with nature lovers from towns and cities such as Fribourg, Bern, and Thun, but some people come from even further afield. There's a fairly well-maintained road for private vehicles (winter tyres or even chains are advised from November through end of February/March); a good public bus route permits a great day out, for example Bern-Schwarzenburg by train; Schwarzenburg-Schwefelbergbad-Gurnigel by bus; Gurnigel-Thurnen by bus; Thurnen-Bern by train. From Gurnigel there are plenty of cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and snowwalking trails; there are a couple of t-bar skilifts -- it's a great place to take your kids.
After an early start to catch the 08.02 train from Bern, the approach that morning was romantic, to say the least:
Hoar-frosted landscape dimly seen through the fog ...
... from the train Bern-Thun via Belp. Time: ca. 8:35AM; nearly at Thurnen, where one changes to the bus, which stops at Riggisberg, not much to shout home about this early on a wintry Saturday morning:
Pretty bleak, eh? But what about this?
Or this -- almost Japanese?
And then this:
The sunrise from the bus, just before 9AM: well worth getting up early for!
Misty morning view from the bus. A traditional farm in the Bernese hinterland. Little snow on the ground. All the trees and wires and everything coated in hoar frost. Gorgeous!When Th. and I met up with our guide, Jörg Wüthrich, owner of outdoor specialist Berg Event (http://berg-event.ch), at Berghaus Gurnigel, it turned out that there were just three of us wishing to participate. Jörg had brought his partner, Mo., and their beautiful, lively and very friendly chocolate labrador, Jessy.
Here she is!Jörg had also brought some serious mountain gear: snow shovels and barryvox avalanche detectors. (Also his storeroom at Berghaus Gurnigel has about one hundred pairs of excellent quality snowshoes and poles to rent from him.) He suggested we might want to do something a little more demanding, like a hike around the Gantrisch. Did we feel up to it? He wouldn't charge us any extra, but it would mean a steeper ascent, a very short lunch break and a very steep descent. About four, four-and-a-half hours. We should just make it back in time for the postbus at about 4:30PM.
The other young woman, Si., had come by car, a nifty two-seater that could, at a pinch, provide enough room for two more passengers. Even if we missed the last bus down, which leaves at about 4:25, we'd not be stranded up there. So, of course we wanted to do the more demanding hike!
We set off at about 10:30AM, from a carpark about ten minutes south of Gurnigel Berghaus. When S. needed to take her first breath, I had a chance of snapping a few photos:
Looking back: the Alps beyond the Bernese Oberland beyond the sea of fog that covers the Mittelland and the Lakes of Thun and Brienz.
Looking forward, the snowy, if not quite pristine landscape in which we head for the round knoll of the Nünenen, here on the horizon to the right of centre. The serrated mountain left of centre is the aptly named Krummfadenfluh (the Peak of the Crooked Thread). It was cold but the sun warmed us very nicely. And here's the mountain that we were going to walk around, the Gantrisch.
It must be one of my favourite peaks. Seen from the north it has a cheeky, optimistic upturned nose. Back in 1971, I dangled my legs from up there one glorious June morning... I must admit, I could scarcely wait this cold December Saturday to get close to that peak again.
The Bürglen, to the west of Gantrisch. A very popular mountain for hikers, both winter and summer. In the early 1970s I ascended it from the Gantrischhütte, first on foot, then on hiking skis fitted with furs -- oops, sorry, this is a case of my underlying German interfering with my English: "skins" is the correct word.*) The descent down the narrow Bürglen couloir in the mountain's north face was exciting: in some places the band of snow was just two metres wide. My much-too-long skis needed some tender loving care afterwards... Tempi passati! *) In case you're interested in a semantic difference between German and English: German, die Haut (skin) has very little or no hair; skin with a continuous hair cover is das Fell (fur). Keeps tripping me up! Thank you, D., for your feedback on the original version.
Back to our snowshoeing tour: Time for a photo break while we're still in the sun:
Three ladies and a gentleman in the sun at the foot of the Gantrisch; Mo. and Jörg; the Bürglen behind Th. and Si.
Four ladies: Mo., Ma., Th. and Si.If we want to make that 4:30 bus downhill, we need to step up the pace. It's about 12:15PM.
The sun begins to highlight the strata in this mountain range: calcareous rock that once was seabed in the proto-Mediterranean. How many millions of years ago?
See the nick in the horizon? That's the Leiterenpass, where we're headed. Yes, the ascent's about as steep as it looks. Ginny far ahead. Seems to know where we're headed. Looking back, that was the view:
The nearby hilltops in full sunshine, while the Mittelland lies hidden under a thick layer of fog (or smog, more like). On the horizon, the Jura range. If you click on this photo, you should be able to see a bigger version of it.
Walking in the shade of old man Gantrisch (with a cream-coloured patch, towards the right or north-west, where a shell from the Swiss artillery knocked a big rock off not long before the whole area stopped being their training ground). We'll be traversing at the foot to hike up to Leiterenpass, not visible in the photo above, but almost within reach in the next:
And that's what lay around the "corner":
Made it! Leiterenpass, 1,905 m asl. Next stop: Morgetenpass, but the far way round, about 90 minutes away. First, though, some photos, a drink of water and a sandwich. Time: about 12:30.
Si. and yours truly, an unusual view of the Gantrisch beyond. Next photo: Si and the Krummfadenfluh. The dark knoll in the distance is the Stockhorn; the dark-blue triangle on the right is the Eiger:
Snowshoe study at Leiterenpass:
More in the next post. Here, to tease you, what's coming...:
Come back soon!PS:
When summer comes round, as it is bound to do, the Mittlist Morgeten Alp to the south of Leiterenpass and Morgetenpass might be a great point of departure to hike up. Here's what I found on the Mittlist Morgeten website, http://www.morgeten.ch/t3/index.php?id=home0 (the website is in German only, the following text is my translation):
"Morgeten, a special Alp in the Simmental
"Alp Morgeten lies at an altitude of 1,655 m asl in the municipality of Oberwil in the Swiss alpine valley called the Simmental, between the panoramic peaks of Gantrisch and Bürglen. Mittlist Morgeten, as it is also called, is part of the Morgeten alpine corporation. Such corporations were created in about the 8th century AD and are part of traditional Alemanic landownership law. The earliest written document is a 1582 copy of a so-called 'Seybuch', a form of land register (still being kept). The earliest dated building goes back to 1468. The hamlet with its seven mountain cabins, an alpine dairy and an alpine restaurant is an ideal destination, point of departure or resting place for hikers.
"At Mittlist Morgeten you can eat and spend the night, enjoy a whey bath or an alpine bath al fresco (water temperature 36°C), play crossgolf on the meadow, make your own cheese (we'll tell you how) – and hike."
[© Translation from German: Margaret Powell, Jan 08.]
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