Snowshoe Glacier Tour: Moosfluh -> Jungfraujoch in two days

This weekend we did a tour with the Basel SAC. The plan was to hike the length of the Grosser Aletschgletscher to the Konkordiahütte on Saturday and then to head through the Lötschenlücke and down into the Lötschental on Sunday.

On Saturday we started quite early: meeting some of our group at the SBB for a 6am train. After changing in Bern and Visp and taking the gondola up from Mörel, meeting the rest of our group near Riederalp, and then another gondola, we were on the Moosfluh between 9 and 9:15. The weather is somewhat variable: a fair amount of high cloud cover, but still some sun and good views. Snowshoes on, LVS's activated, the seven of us head down the steep side of the hill towards the glacier. Along the way down one of our number realizes that he's going to have fitness problems, so he turns back along with one other person. The remaining five of us rope in at the bottom of the hill and set out across the glacier.

There's a good amount of snowcover on the glacier and only the biggest crevasses are not covered, so the going is pretty good (this route would be somewhere between incredibly frustrating/dangerous and outright insane in the summer time).

We don't have to do too much weaving around and are able to just walk. We "enjoy" the usual pleasures of being roped in: different step lengths, different preferences for hiking speed, etc., but it's not overall too bad. The clouds start to close in as we hike, so the view is constantly changing.

After some hours of hiking we reach Konkordiaplatz and the beginning of the stairs up to the hut. We're now on familiar territory. We unrope ourselves, take off the snowshoes, and Andrea has time for a couple quick pictures before the clouds completely close in. Up the damn stairs we go (120m of vertical on stairs at the end of the day... joy) and then we settle in at the hut.

It's early season and the forecast isn't great, so we have the great pleasure of being in a hut that's less than 1/3 full. After a very pleasant evening and a really nice meal we make our plans for Sunday: given the crappy forecast and the moderately high avalanche risk, we're not going to head through the Lötschenlücke; instead we'll head up to the Jungfraujoch. Plans made, it's off to bed.

On Sunday we start pretty late: we get up shortly after 6 and are underway between 7:30 and 8:00. The weather is every bit as crappy as forecast: we're either in or just under the clouds and visibility is not great. Down the stairs, on with the snowshoes, rope in, and off we go. The route is nominally quite simple: straight ahead and up, but things are always more interesting when you can't see much more than 50m. It's "fun" to look ahead and see nothing.

 In order to keep some sense of orientation and avoid a couple of heavy crevasse areas (on the map at least), we keep the cliffs of the Trugberg visible to our right as we climb. After what is subjectively quite a while thing start to flatten out a bit.

At this point we just need to find the Jungfraujoch. There's not any particular risk of getting lost: worst case we just walk straight ahead until we find the cliffs of the Mönch and then turn left. Still, it's quite windy now and walking in these conditions isn't the most pleasurable thing, so we hope that won't be necessary. Not too much later (again, subjectively much longer), Andrea spots one of the posts marking the route between the Jungfraujoch and the Mönchsjochhütte. Yay! Now we just follow from one post to the next until the cliffs of the Jungfrau and the entrance into the tunnel complex appears before us. We unrope and take off the snowshoes as quickly as possible and then head inside. More fun with tourist madness, a quick lunch break, and then we start the very long (4.5 hour) trip home.

Track for day 1:

Track for day 2:

Biel to Sonceboz

Our plan was to take advantage of the nice weather and do a longish snowshoe tour.

We started in Biel and headed up through the green (no snow in sight), along the tracks of the funicular, to Magglingen. From here we enjoy the excellent Alp views, then head to the big sports facility at End der Welt (!!) and down through the forest on the other side to Jorat. Now it's up, up again the next ridge. At this point our bellies are starting to grumble and, fortuitously, there's a restaurant open at La Bragarde. We have a very satisfying lunch (pea soup with smoked ham hocks... mmmmm) and then head onwards and upwards, still with amazing Alp views, until we reach the Jurahaus (we've been here before).

That's it for the climbing for the day; now we head down the other side of the ridge until we hit the cross-country skiing trails on the other side (plenty of snow on this side of the ridge, but we still don't need the snowshoes). Across the lovely open field and towards the Pont des Anabaptistes and the Combe du Bex. Towards the bottom of the mostly snow-covered road to the gorge, we get passed by a dogsled (!!!).

Through the gorge, then along the side of the hill, descending the whole way until we're above Sonceboz. At this point we see a train coming from the other side of the valley, so we pick up our pace dramatically and end up getting to the station just as the train pulls in. Whew!

Two days over Thusis: Day two

We wake to lovely cloud-free blue skies. Excellent! After a nice breakfast we head to the train station and grab a bus to Ober Tschappina (stress on the first syllable! the bus driver will look at you funny if you put it elsewhere). It's a real pleasure to put on sunscreen in the bus. :-)

From the bus stop we follow a forest road off towards the Glaspass. After a few minutes of enjoying walking in the sun we head off on a nice path which leads us up through the woods towards the pass. At the pass we pick up a winter hiking path up towards the ridge. After a bit of this the snowshoe trail heads up and off to the left; we put on the snowshoes and follow. Some climbing later, we're up top and enjoying the views. After a couple pictures we continue along the ridge, head steeply down, and then through the rolling land to the saddle. The snow really makes the rolling, bumpy landscape fun. From the saddle we start climbing again, up, up to the Lüschgrat. It's a bit surprising to see the top of a lift from there, but we take a few steps back and enjoy the sun and views with a quick lunch break.
After lunch we head down again (ah, ridge hikes) until we reach the Bischolpass. Around the bump at p2056 and then up, up again to the Tguma. Another short break to eat a bit and enjoy the views and then we head down for real. Heading down through deep snow with snowshoes is fun. :-) After some descent we end up back on a prepared winter hiking path. We wend our way down, through a small ski area, until we end up just above Unter Tschappina. Another short break on a bench in the sun (we've got time to kill) and then down to the houses to see if we can find somewhere to sit and wait for the bus. Of course the only restaurant in town is closed for the winter, so we find a sunny spot in the sun and hang out until the bus comes and we start the long trip back to Basel.

Two days over Thusis: Day one

The forecast for Sunday and Monday was good, so we decided to skip Fasnacht this year and head out to the mountains to get some sun and move our legs.

We start by taking the gondola up from Chur to Brambüesch under a very disappointing blanket of clouds, have a coffee, and then head up the snowshoe trail that runs more or less parallel to the T-bar for a bit before dropping us at the edge of a ski slope above the tree line. Hrm. Up we go beside the slope until we reach the bottom of the chair lift at Hühnerköpfe. Here there's no snowshoe trail at all in evidence, so rather than continue to walk up through the ski area, we take the lift up (nice that the guy at the lift lets us do this!) to Furggabüel. From here we should theoretically have great views out over the high plain and over towards the Fulhorn, our planned destination for the day. Given the low clouds, we don't actually see much of anything. Crap.

Ah well, off we go, following the tracks of other snowshoers, past the Dreibündenstein and continuing South. After a while the clouds lift some and we can see the, still cloud covered, top of the Fulhorn. As we continue the sun comes out a bit in front of us (yay!), so we adjust our route to head for that (not much point heading up a mountain to not have any views). Upon reaching a sunny patch, we have a quick lunch, marvel at the number of people heading up to the Fulhorn despite the less-than-optimal conditions, and then turn to the West and head a bit across the rolling plain. After some nice descending through deep snow, we hit the Culm Ault and pick up the winter hiking path that takes us around the Tgom' Aulta (Graubunden place names can really sound like locations in a fantasy novel) and then to the ski area at Alp Raguta. We do another short sandwich break, watching the guys curling and in general enjoying the chaos, and then set off down the road. Unfortunately we listen to some spurious argument from Greg about not wanting to sled down wearing a backpack, so we doom ourselves to a long, winding route down. Ah well, we wanted to use our legs.

From Feldis we take the gondola down to Rhäzuns, where we get the bus to Thusis and our hotel. The Hotel Weiss Kreuz has a small wellness area downstairs (steam bath, sauna, something in between) which we take good advantage of before a pre-dinner rest and a good meal to wrap up the day. The weather may not have played along, but it was good to be out in the fresh air and moving our legs.

Along the ridge from Einsiedeln to Brunni

Finally a day with good weather! Sun! Snow! Whoot! Off to the mountains with us!

We're supposed to be doing a two-day SAC tour, but unfortunately the organizer is sick, so we have to make our own fun. No problem... we can do that.

The weather is ideal and the route is a simple one: up to the ridge from Einsiedeln and then along the ridge, up and down, up and down, until we hit the alp at Furggelen. After being mostly alone all day, we're scared off by the masses here, so we head down directly to Brunni rather than continuing the last bit up to the Furggelenstock.