Switzerland- Day 2

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07/18/03
Mine and John's original climbing plan was to attempt the route that most folks descend from the Eiger. Based on info from folks on the Russia trip, we opted to climb the Eigers neighbor, The Mönch standing at 13,448ft instead. We got up real early and headed for the first train after stealing some rolls that the bakery just delivered to the hotel. It was great to see not a cloud in the sky and alpinglow on the hanging glacier up the valley. They have a "good morning ticket" up to the Jongfraujoch, but you have to leave to come back down on the noon train, fat chance that was happening but we got the ticket anyway. The train climbs steadily from about 3300ft in Grindelwald up to Kleine Scheidegg at 6600ft then continues on through (yes through) the Eiger, through The Mönch, and ends up behind the Jongfrau up around 11,000ft. We could see the route up the Eigers descent route, and were glad we chose The Mönch instead.
Someone years ago had a vision to bring tourist way up the mountain to the glacier and ended up boring a hole right through the Eiger to do it. Strange, but effective and a great idea. The Jongfraujoch is a tourist heaven, several view points of the rugged and glaciated Alps all around, restaurants, shops, an "ice palace" and all sorts of options to spend money. We flew past all of this and got on the glacier for the short hike towards the climbers hut and the start of the climb. From the glacier it sure didn't look like 2400ft to the summit ridge, but we could see the route up the ridge and it kept switching from rock to snow and ice. We harnessed up and started working out the loose rocky ridge. Some class 3 and 4 moves most of the way and gained altitude fast. At the first snow field we roped up and strapped on the crampons. It was about 30 degrees or so, but a pretty thin ridge to the next section or rock. Each rock or snow section looked more difficult than the last and we stayed roped up working our way up. From here it looked more like 2400ft to the summit ridge and the glacier and tourists below kept getting smaller and small, but the views kept getting more and more spectacular! Seemed like the glaciers and peaks never stopped in the distance. I was pretty freaked out at a few spots and definitely would've turned around if I was climbing solo, luckily John's a better climber so I had to keep going. He later told me that he was pretty freaked out at times also, I'm just glad he waited to tell me after the climb!
The higher we got on the knife-edge ridge the more exposure we encountered and the drop-offs on either side were HUGE! Our plan was that if one of us fell, the other had to jump down the other side as counterweight so we wouldn't both get pulled off. Yikes! The ridge got thin enough at one point that we couldn't even put two feet next to each other. All I could do to keep moving was to look at my feet and a couple inches ahead! Soon we were at the last pitch of snow and it was the steepest section, probably about 50 degrees and enough that we had to use the pick of the ice axe to work our way up. Luckily there were spots to set up a running belay that would hopefully hold us if we fell. The snow section eventually leveled out some and we were walking on the downside of a huge overhanging cornice. It was amazing!! The whole way up I was dreading the down climb, and it wasn't long off.
We only spent about a minute on the windy and tiny summit before heading back down. There was a guided group on their way up and we had quite a traffic jam at a bad spot. There was barely enough room for one person and John and I had to squeeze past them without peeling off the slope. I was thinking how damn good the beer would taste if we ever got off this thing! The down climbing is harder and slower than the up climbing cause you can't see where you are trying to put your feet or hands. Pretty scary and slow going again at times. Eventually we were back on the broken and loose ledges near where we started. I started to feel more relieved and thinking back to other climbs, I now had a new favorite climb. It was a perfect mixed rock, snow climb at altitude up a knife-edge ridge in the middle of the beautiful Alps!!!!! Once back down on the glacier a crevasse had opened up that we walked right across earlier! So back out with the ropes, harnesses, and axe. Not knowing how big the lip was we belayed each other and took a flying leap of faith over to the other side! What a great way to end the climb! Walking back we came across Peggy and went into the Jongfraujoch for beers and to see the touristy stuff. The view points were damn cool, and the ice palace was neat too. Its a hallway carved out of the glacier ice with ice sculptures carved everywhere in little coves! It was similar to ice skating around. The train ride down had great views and John was trying to mentally prepare to take over the baby for the rest of the day. It was a spectacular view from the Kleine Scheidegg of the Eiger, the Mönch, and the Jongfrau all lined up next to each other. Pigged out at the local pizza joint for dinner and drank a bunch of Rugenbrau (local beer) on the deck.

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View from our porch in the early morning sun