A Winter Tour of Switzerland – Take Three: Mount Titlis

Hello again

This post is about my friend M.'s and my second excursion in Switzerland, a daytrip from Berne to Mount Titlis, high above Engelberg, which is high in the mountains south of Lake Lucerne. We took the train along the beautiful Entlebuch valley, superb-looking with lots of hoar-frosted trees and woods and cascades of ice. Not much water in the Emme.
We changed trains in Lucerne, to the little red train that goes up to Engelberg (1050 m asl). From the Obermatt hydropower station up to the plateau, the train locks into cogs set into the ground. It's a steep ride :)
The weather was great and looked even better higher up so we caught a series of cable cars to ride up to Mount Titlis, 3020 m asl (10,000 feet). I think the views from up there are way better than from Jungfraujoch, which is another 430 m higher.
You'll find mountain choughs in either place :)
Otherwise, it's hard to compare the two locations, though: one thing that's absolutely fantastic about Mount Titlis is that it is skiable all the way (excellent if demanding slopes for skiers and snowboarders). There's also a lot of space to take a leisurely walk in the snow, too. They even have an ice cave ...
... but that is not a patch on the Ice Palace at Jungfraujoch! And the climate and atmospheric research being carried out at Jungfraujoch is unique in Europe. Nor is the unique view of one of the biggest glaciers in the Alps, the Grosse Aletsch Gletscher. Both locations are very touristy, with boutiques, shops and restaurants to cater for the needs of thousands of visitors each day.
Well, here come some visual souvenirs of our excursion of December 29, 2007:
M.'s very first ride in a cable car. This is the third leg already and M. is visibly enjoying herself in the spacious, if crowded, revolving cable car from Stand to Titlis (the outer shell stays in place while the floor turns slowly round giving passengers a 360° view of the breathtaking scenery). Here it comes, or goes ... and this is the view:
A quick look back at the Truebsee mountain restaurant -- very busy and its lovely terrace bathed in the bright winter sun -- before we are awestruck by the sheer cliffs and snow:We've arrived -- you did it, M.!And yes, your kids need to know about your exploit right away: M. calling her daughter from this august place, shortly before I'm divebombed by a boisterous chough:One of the neat views from the terrace at the Titlis tourist complex. If you look carefully, you will see a Buddha-shaped outcropping in the shadowy area at the centre of the photo, well a little left of centre.
Above: one of the not-so-lovely views. As is common for mountain tops in Switzerland, there's a huge, ungainly, ugly communications tower. I suppose I shouldn't complain because I use mobile telephones and radio, telephone and TV... But do the towers really have to be this ugly?Mountain choughs are wheeling and diving just beyond the tourist terrace. They are a gregarious lot and always out for crumbs tossed to them. The sun is very bright, the slope at least 45°, very steep: You don't want to go over the railing here.
But look at the view:Mountain peaks stretch as far as the eye can see beyond the glacier and tourist facilities at Mount Titlis.Above: View due south of Mount Titlis. Below: View due west.
Tightly packed snow above the tourist centre.

Not everyone was having such a great day, though. We witnessed someone being wheeled past in a bright red-orange stretcher to be taken out to the helipad in the snow.
The REGA air ambulance was soon ready for take-off, kicking up a snowstorm …… and turning into a hair-raising descent. I love flying but I was glad it wasn't me in that chopper.

Time to go. On our way down, the sunny terrace of Truebsee is now bathed in the blue light of early evening.We make it down to the carpark at the foot of Mount Titlis just as the light fades at about 4:20 PM.
The proud Hahnen (The Rooster or Cockerel) bathed in pre-sunset light towers high above the car park.
A few minutes later the very last sunrays catch the Ruchstock (left in previous photo) and the Hahnen (above, left) and Spannort (above, centre) while the rest of the scenery is already bathed in the blue light of early evening.
Twenty minutes later, we're well on the way to Lucerne again.
It's a steep drop from the narrow-gauge railway track to the road below.A babbling brook or raging torrent in spring, summer and autumn, the Engelberger Aa (above) is just a band of ice right now. I missed taking a daytime snap of the cathedral-like hydropower station at Obermatt. But this is a lovely blue impression including the hoar-frosted trees and shrubs.
M. would have liked to have a really good photo of one of hundreds of massive ice falls that adorned the cliffs along our route, but in the fading light it was difficult to snap a decent photo.
Good job if you like the colour blue.

Next post: Meiringen and Grindelwald. Coming soon!

Musings

Hello again

At the end of a pretty intense day, just a few notes.

One, I've long meant to mention that I recently read Frank McCourt's "memoir", Angela's Ashes, about growing up in Ireland in the 1930s/1940s. Impressive read. At university I read James Joyce's "memoir", A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which McCourt's book seems to almost seamlessly pick up from. The similiarities in their catholic upbringing are striking. McCourt's poverty is even more extreme. I admire anyone who pulled through that kind of abject destitution.
I won't go into whether Angela's Ashes is a factual enough book -- let me just say that, if one really focuses on certains points in one's past and stops worrying about what might turn up, it's amazing what details will surface, right down to tones of voice, facial expressions, colours, physical sensations, smells, noises, etc. So I have no problem believing McCourt.

What else. Oh yes, bitching about the weather: Yesterday I received an announcement about European River Swimming Day on Sunday, July 15. Lovely idea: people everywhere will jump into their favourite rivers to demonstrate their love of a healthy environment. More at http://www.rivernet.org/bigjump/ However, as I thought when I read the announcement, our river here is much too dangerous these days, so the event has had to be cancelled. Maybe further downriver things will be better. I'm hoping to perhaps jump into a river in the Jura -- definitely taking my swimwear as hot weather has been forecast.

A year ago, this is where I was, at this very hour, 5:30-ish PM:
Absolutely no-one else will ever be allowed to use this photo [© R.A.E., by the way] because it's a far from attractive view of me from behind. It will serve very nicely, thank you, as a memory of how great it was to be walking towards that lovely, cool water of the top end of Lake Thun after a hot descent from the Jungfraujoch the same day.
Mind, I won't forget that excursion in a hurry, because of the great time we all had up on the ice and in the snow after getting up at the crack of dawn to catch the first train up. Worth it just for the gorgeous early morning drive up the Aare valley all the way to Interlaken Ost (I'll remember that for the rest of my life, too, but that's another story). And also because, a few minutes after the above photo was taken, I had to muster all my ancient rescuing skills when dealing with a drowning person: the friend I had spent the day with, an outdoors person if I've ever seen one, suddenly felt very faint out by a raft which, however, had not steps to climb up, was too far above the water and out of reach. He almost had to be dragged back to safety. The combination of massive differences in elevation, lack of sleep, lack of food and the great heat, followed by sudden cool water took a toll on a body that once was fighting fit but that day (dare I say it) rather overweight and under-fit at the time. Gave us rather a nasty fright. Not sure I've been forgiven for coaxing the man into the water in the first place. Ah well, such is life, I suppose. Need I say that I'm glad nothing more serious happened?

To finish this off for today, here's another sky picture -- just as a reminder of how lovely summer can be, even in Berne, even in July (by the way, I'm currently wearing scarf, long-sleeved shirt, vest, long trousers, socks, warm slippers, and still not feeling really warm. Temperature this morning, at about 9AM: about 10°C! Unheard-of for this time of the year. I woke several times last night, feeling like the tip of my nose was about to fall off with the cold. Honestly!

Nuff said, here comes the blue sky!

Summer 07 -- what summer? -- in Bern

Hello again

It's cold out there! Over lunch at work we were talking of the hot days of April past when I even ventured into the river for a quick, refreshing swim. This morning -- and a late morning it was, too, more about that perhaps later -- I cycled to work wearing socks and warm shoes, long-sleeved t-shirt, scarf, woolly cardigan, coat. For the past hour or so I've been contemplating putting the scarf back on because I've felt chilly about my neck and throat. Mad, this!
A year ago we were sweltering in +30°C or thereabouts, and I was introducing a Scottish friend to the magic of our gorgeous river. We also ventured up to the Jungfraujoch (tomorrow a year ago exactly), where we chanced into friends of his from Inverness -- what a gas it was to be cavorting about in the cool snow under a perfect blue sky. Unbelievable, but true, as this photo proves:
Well, right now the view from Jungfraujoch must be of swirling cloud and white mist and in the river there's no swimming at all. These days, anyone who tries must be suicidal: the rivers in this area are all full to almost flood level, and so are the lakes. The river's waters are murky, carrying a lot of broken-off branches of trees and other debris, and hiding dislodged rocks. Only about a week ago, the police found the body of a young lad, about seventeen, who had suddenly vanished in the swiftly running river some ten days earlier, on one of the rare summery days this past June. Someone saw a body being carried down the "Schwellenmaetteli"-barrier in the "Matte". Search teams couldn't find the body until it washed up quite a bit further downstream, in one of the "combs" holding back debris and flotsam from the inlet to a small hydropower station.
Luckily, the forecast for the weekend is rather better, so, after all, I might not need to buy a rain cover for myself and my backpack for a day's walking in the Jura. In fact, they're calling for very hot weather.
This yo-yo system -- changes of over 10°C in less than a day, with the snow-line down to about 2000 m asl today, which at least might mean the glaciers aren't melting off quite so fast -- is taxing everyone: after a week of very chilly weather, we had a middling Friday and a very hot Saturday, followed by a day of rain and much cooler temperatures and doctors have noticed a lot of flu patients flocking to their surgeries.
Here, just to underpin memories of sunnier days, here are a few photos of last Saturday, when Berne saw the kick-off event to a petition drive to encourage our government to up funding of development projects in the third world to 0.7 per cent of GDP. I was helping out at the stand of one of my favourite NGOs, pbi-Peace Brigades International, far from the only one to do so:
Public attendance and interest was pretty good, and it wasn't only young people who were curious to see what was inside the boxes hanging from threads:
A helper at alliance sud's neighbouring stall: