We got up super early to get to the train station (and try to get some breakfast that once again didn't live up to the expectations). Our train was leaving at 7:35 a.m., and wouldn't arrive at the Top of Europe until 10 a.m. The trip was only about 5 miles on the train.
The thing is, the stop we were heading for was 11,388 feet above sea-level. Jungfraujoch.
The ingenious Swiss built an electric cog railway from Grindlewald through the rock and up to the very top of the mountain. We happened to pick the place where these cog railways started and stopped. Perfect. This was not a cheap trip. It's very expensive. Far more than the top of Mt. Pilatus would have been, but it was a gorgeous clear, amazing day and worth every damn swiss franc we spent.
I've found some Jungfrau Webcams so you can check out the area. In the winter, the snow is just amazing.
We hop on the train, and-- well by now you should be able to glean something of what I am about to tell you --get stuck behind the most rude British Indian family you have never wanted to meet. Everyone on this train was quiet, neat, respectful and spent the time admiring the view. Not them. I was fairly convinced that they had won the trip and had never bother to go father than 30 miles from their shack in Blackshire. I didn't know the British could piss me off, but this gross family did.
We did our best to ignore them. The train was distraction enough, as were the views.
The train had four stops along the way. The first was super tiny little town about 1/3rd of the way up. No one got on, but you could tell that people did live there. I would have loved to live somewhere that was only accessible by electric cog railway. The next stop was 2/3rd of the way up. Mannlichen. A full blown station town, with a hostel, shops, ski lifts, and a restaurant.
Ski lifts. Yes. Skiing in Europe is very, very different from what we are used to in the US. There are lifts to get you to peaks, but there are no trails. Not marked ones like you think of at like Hunter Mountain or Killington on the East Coast. Perhaps some of the higher peaks in the Rockies might have something like this, but even there I imagine that unless you are being dropped from a helicopter up near the top, there're still marked trails. There aren't over there. So several people hiked up to the one still working lift and off the went.
Then you reboard a different train, and this is much steeper, much older cog railcar. Still electric (since the clever Swiss saw that it was a cleaner and better way to go from the start), but the cogs were more serious on this one.
The car starts to tilt an unreal angle on the way up-- and I've been on cog railways before that dangled off the edge of cliff. This was a severe tilt. Walking up the train wasn't going to happen, you could only fall to the back of the car. You traveled for about 15 minutes on a very steep track, and then you came to the third stop. A supply station, a super tiny 6 room hostel, and that's it. Apparently, it also served as a ski launch in mid-winter.
And then you're off again. Up into the mountain this time, though you'd have gotten a few tastes of the tunnel by then. Still, it's cool. There's wall about 2 inches outside the train, and they run a little documentary on the building of the tunnel. It's about 25 minutes from the entry of the tunnel to your fourth and final stop. A viewing platform to one of small glacial gulches on the side of Mt. Eiger (which is the mountain you are traveling through). What this really does is give your body a chance to adapt to the thinner air. You're at about 9,000 feet when you get out that time.
You get 10 minutes to pee, get your pictures and get back on the train. And then it's another 20 minutes and the rest of the documentary to the top.
The train station is completely under the mountain. You depart the train in a solid rock cavern. In fact, the entire complex save the restaurant and observatory is carved into the rock.
Well, there were about 3 or 4 large tour groups on the train we arrived on. We decided to take our time and head out for the glacier at leisurely pace. We take an elevator to a long, lighted tunnel that's probably about 1/4 mile or so. The tunnel lets you out on to the glacier.
The valley between the peaks of Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau is a glacial valley. It's a huge glacier, in other words: A huge sheet of flowing ice. I didn't imagine that we were going to get to see something like this in Europe. I was sure that it was going to have to wait until we were able to go to Alaska. But there it is. Right there. AND-- we're allowed to walk on the marked path. I wanted to walk all the way to Monch peak. I really did. But I forgot about something.
Altitude sickeness.
It was hard to walk after only about 100 yards. My legs were tingling, and my head was getting light. All of sudden I had a massive asthma attack right there on the glacier. I also managed to step a little too far over to the right and started to go through the snow. I pulled out the inhaler and told T that we coudln't go that far; I wouldn't make it. I was sorely disappointed.
Still, we were able to walk for a while and just the idea that we were on top of this amazing glacier was a cool feeling. I decided that I wanted to take a picture of us on the glacier and there was a convenient post sticking out of the edge of the path. I didn't want to trust anyone with my digital because I seem to be the only one who can work the thing the right way. I set the timer, I perched it on the post--
-- and fell off the snow path and into the glacier. Right up to my hip. I had to yank myself back out, and run over to where T was standing.
Thankfully, the picture did come out, and it's one of my very favorites of the trip. I also fell in again when I was retrieving the camera, but only up to my knee on the other leg. *Sigh* It started to become a game of how many times can J fall into the glacier.
We hiked back to the tunnel and headed back down towards the other things going on. Along the way, T decided that he wanted a cigarette.
Now, we all know that altitude sickness is caused by the lack of oxygen in the thinning atmosphere, right children. Pause a moment and reflect on what else needs air a/k/a oxygen to exist.
That's right! Fire.
So, T has the cigarette in his mouth, ready to light, lighter out.
Click. Nothing. Click. Nothing. Click, click, click, shake, click, click--
--BLAM!!!!
Fireball. All the gas had built up around the lighter, and when he finally got enough of a spark it all ignited in a fireball. After I checked that his eyebrows were still there, I gave into a fit of laughter. He was naturally not too happy about this, but it was damn funny.
Our next stop was the Sphinx platform. This is an indoor/outdoor observation platform that you have the option of visiting. We opted to visit. Now, in the picture above, you can see the Alps behind us, and it looks really cold and snowy right? And I've said, at least twice that the Alps just pop up as you're driving along. Here's your visual proof from 11,000+ feet--
picture is MIA, please enjoy this one instead:
Somewhere close by in that picture is Bern, the capital of Switzerland. But you can see there are only a few peaks to the west of the one were on.
And the cold and the snow? Yeah, that's about the only picture that I got from the top of the Sphinx platform. The wind was whipping up the side of the mountain and most of it was frozen with melted/refrozen snow. We walked around the Platform once and we were done. Back inside where the wind wasn't threatening to lift me off and toss me over the rail into the glacier. Again.
I mentioned the tourists when we debarked the train. But here's an odd thing. Like most of the other places we had been, the groups... disappeared. I swore that the mountain ate this time. But it was every place we went where there were tours going on. There were no tour groups. They disappeared into the realms of the attraction never to be seen again. At the Fortress, at the Hofberg, at the Kristallwelten, at Jungfrau. The only place that didn't eat it's visitors was the Fondation Pierre Gianadda. Go fig.
There are still things to see at the top of this mountain, if you can believe it. We next ventured into the Ice Caverns. These are man-made caves carved into the glacier about 10m down (about 30ft.)
Let's review briefly what a glacier is, shall we? It's snow. Ok, it's not quite as easy as that. What it is is thousand upon thousands of years of snow layered new on old. Now, you know from shoveling (and if you don't, shut up and be grateful) that snow is heavy. If you put more snow on top of it, the snow beneath gets compacted. Imagine this happening over and over and over and the snow never having a chance to melt. The old snow gets more and more compact until the individual ice crystals are pressed so hard that they melt briefly from the pressure and refreeze into ice. Now remember, it's still snowing on top of your compacted ice. The weight of the snow and ice above the old layers causes them to flow. Ice flows, and naturally out to sea or seeking the lowest level. (This is what's going on when you see those really cool pictures of Alaska... the glaciers are cleaving [breaking off] because they are flowing into the sea.)
Now, what someone did here on Jungfrau was dig down about 10 thousand years (30 feet) to find a nice clean area of snow-turned-ice, carve a cavern into it. The ice is pure and clear and blue. True ice is blue. They carved some ice statues into it, and you can run and slide along the floor. (This was fun until I hit the wall.) The cavern has to be maintained because it's always melting and flowing. And this ingeniousness leads to this:
The chance to humiliate my husband. Thank you, Mother Nature.
So, after getting this picture, which illicted at "Damn, he must really love you if he let you take that" from my brother-in-law, we moved on. There were two more stops we had to make. The next was called the plateau. It was near the Sphinx platform, but... you went out on the snow on the top of this mountain. Not the glacier but the snow.
I am wearing sneakers. NOT ideal for walking in snow, but still, they have some grip. T is wear a nice heavy pair of Sketchers, so he's good to go. But the idiot in front of us whom I think has never seen snow in his life, not so much. He's wearing dress shoes.
Dress.
Shoes.
A great part of the snow field was more like an ice field. There was a section over on the side that was snow that allowed you to get out the door and on to the plateau. I spotted this and immediately took that path out. Carefully, and T followed. Dimwit goes straight for the ice and down on his ass. He got up and tried about three more times before he realized there was no one else trying to walk where he was, and followed the rest of us. But even out beyond this icy area, he and his cohorts were sliding all over the place. Not a one of them had the common sense to wear something more sturdy on their feet, or even not go out on the ice. Tough one, that.
Anyway, it was beautiful, beautiful view, and not nearly as cold the platform earlier. The wind was much less strong.
By that picture, you would never guess that there were about 50 people out there with us, slipping and sliding and cursing in about 12 different languages. We carefully crawled back down another less icy portion of the plateau. And went to lunch.
There is indeed a restuarant at 11,000 ft. The food was not gourmet, but it was acceptable and filling, and it's the view down the glacial valley that really makes it worth it. There aren't many times in your life you have to eat lunch with your sunglasses on from the glare.
We wandered down to the train station after our late lunch so that we wouldn't be on the last train and everyone shoving to get on. We did get seats and we were on our way back down. After we changed trains at Mannlichen, I looked over to discover two dogs sitting on the floor. I don't know how the Europeans trains their animals, but Americans really need to do learn the tricks. I would never have seen the silly hunds there if I hadn't looked over. Because the animals are so calm and so well trained, there aren't many restrictions on bringing pets places.
It was about 5 or 6 when we got back to the station. Grindlewald isn't an exciting place in the offseason. The restaurants were closed, and the only thing that really had anything for us to munch was the ice cream parlor. It was good ice cream. We sat for a while, and then went back to the hotel for dinner again. we took our time with diner, and then went up to bed. We were heading back to Germany the next day.
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