Grimsel Pass
In the morning we had breakfast and left on a perfect blue sky driving toward Brigg to stop in Feisch where we intended to take a cabin up the mountain and see the Aletsch Glacier from the opposite side of Jungfraujoch and do another hike. We crossed the spectacular Grimsel pass and we stopped in Feisch, where we bought tickets for the cabin that takes you every half hour on Eiggshorn. There are actually two cabins, one from Feisch from Middle station at 2222m and one from the middle station to the top that is around 3100 m. Our intention was to walk all the way down to Feisch on a trails described in the book or at least to the middle station. Unfortunately nobody knows exactly how long these hikes take and how to explain where they start and is hard to plan no matter what investigations you do in advance.
We parked the car in a paid parking (CH4) at the cabin and we purchased RT tickets for CH80. The people who sell tickets are extremely helpful and based on your group/family they always offer you the best deal, expensive as it is but less that the regular. In general we found all the Swiss Germans we encountered to be extremely helpful and nice and in any case not those snotty and distant people they are characterized by many.
Aletsch Glacier, Eiggshorn
We took the first cabin up around 2:30 pm and we got on top where after the regular wows, impressed by the highway of ice and snow that was coming down from Jungfraujoch, we started to climb Eiggshorn a mountain made from accumulated stones. The hike to the top, where is located a cross, is relatively easy in spite of negotiating rock hoping on the way but the views are amazing both toward the glacier and towards the valley. It is really worth it! We climbed down and tried also to climb down closer to the glacier but this proved very difficult. So we gave up and we started to climb down to the Middle station under the cabin, a hike that is hard being quite steep and rough terrain and it took 90 minutes as advertised on the boards. Our feet were sore and starting also late we decided that we will take the cabin the last cabin down to Feisch.
Now the weather question came again and, driving further, we debated what to do, to bet on a good day for tomorrow and go in Zermatt or to beat for rain and go to Montreux. The weather on the mountains started to be bad, with dark clouds and occasional drops of rains in the last part of our hike and this happened quickly. Not having an updated Internet forecast we decided for a compromise: we took the road to Zermatt but we stopped at a restaurant at 7 km from Visp. We sat for dinner of cheese fondue and we checked for rooms in the hotel. Right in front of the hotel was a large house labeled “Zimmer” with a big sign carved in wood and put on top. So I went to ask for rooms and to no surprise they had a room with three beds for CH75, a fraction of the price that it may cost in a hotel. After we finished dinner we confirmed the room and went for a quite sleep.
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