ski mountaineering bernese oberland photo diary

This is the photo diary of Dave Butcher of a ski mountaineering trip in the Bernese Oberland from the Jungfraujoch above Grindelwald / Wengen to Reckingen.

The 6 day trip was the last week of April in 1995. We skied from the Jungfraujoch station (3454 m) above Grindelwald (1034 m) to Reckingen (1326 m) in the south (near Brig), taking in 4 mountains despite bad weather for several days. 

Guides

Jon de Montjoye, a British UIAGM mountain guide living in Vallorcine near Chamonix.

Fred Charlet, a French UIAGM guide from Chamonix helping Jon as the group was large.

Andy Cave, an aspirant guide and climber from Yorkshire. Andy became a fully qualified UIAGM guide in 2008.

Our Group

13 clients, including Mark Rogerson and Graham Arthur, destined to become members of the No Polenta Club which had its first trip in 1997.

Ordering Black and White Fine Art Prints

If you would like a memento of your trip or a gift, all of the black and white images are available as fine art black and white prints. Most of them were taken with a Mamiya 6 camera on Ilford 120 film and are available as high quality hand made darkroom prints in a range of sizes from 40x30cm to 70x70cm (size refers to mount and frame, image is a few cm smaller).

They all have a 6 digit number at the end of the title to uniquely identify the negative to help ordering – just type this number into the search box in the World Landscapes Gallery and it will show the image and ordering information. Not all images are included so if you can’t find the ones that interest you just send me an email using the Contact page form on this website and we’ll sort out the details between us.

Friday 21st April 1995 Travel to Grindelwald

My wife Jan gave me a lift to Manchester Airport to catch the 7.45am Swissair flight. It arrived in Zurich late morning and from there I caught the train to Interlaken, then the train to Grindelwald (a bit of an antique and quite small carriages), taking care to sit in the right carriage as part of the train split to go to Lauterbrunnen! From the station in the centre of Grindelwald I walked down the hill to the Mountain Hostel in Grindelwald Grund to check-in. This was our meeting point and was where I had booked myself in for an extra night.

Saturday 22nd April 1995 Grindelwald

The plan was to go skiing to try and get my ski legs going again before the trip started. Unfortunately, the weather was really bad with heavy rain and wind so none of the lifts were working and everything in the ski area was closed. In fact, we later found out that there had been around 3 metres of snow on the higher slopes in the previous week and it was still snowing up high, but raining in the valley.

A few of the others had also arrived so we went for a walk and headed for the Glacier Canyon walkway. This is one of the visitor attractions for Grindelwald and there was a gate preventing access as it was closed. We went past this and along the walkway and were surprised by how many of the slats across the raised walk, which was bolted to the walls of the canyon above the river, were missing. There soon came a point where the gaps in the walkway were too big to progress so we returned and wandered around the valley until the rain returned and sent us back to the hostel.

Jon and co. arrived late afternoon, checked all of us and our gear and in the early evening took us to a nearby chalet restaurant for a meal.

Day 1, Sunday 23rd April 1995 Grindelwald to Mönchsjoch Hut

The day started with us catching the first funicular train of the day from Grindelwald Grund to Kleine Scheidegg and then on to the Jungfraujoch. The train stopped 3 times on the way up to let everyone off to admire the view but the weather was so wild, with strong winds, snow and low clouds, that it was impossible to see anything. We waited quite a while at the top to see if it cleared, visited the ice palace, the cafe, etc. anything to pass the time. 

In the end we could put it off no longer, we had to leave. We climbed over the locked metal gate stopping visitors venturing out the back, put our gear on in the tunnel, including skis and climbing skins. Then it was outside into the teeth of a gale, an absolute white-out. Visibility was less than 10 m. It was uphill most of the way to the hut in deep snow and if you stopped for more than a second or two the person in front was lost from sight. 

After an hour and a half or so we reached the slope below the Mönchsjoch hut (3650m). We took skis off here and carried them up the steep track to the hut. What a relief it was to get inside out of the storm. We were the first ones to stay at the hut in 3 days because of the bad weather.

Hut: Mönchsjoch

Day 2, Monday 24th April 1995 Mönchsjoch Hut to Konkordia hut

It was a bit better, it had stopped snowing! There was still low cloud and a strong wind. Our guides radioed ahead to the next hut to say that we were coming and ask if there were any problems to look out for. The reply was that food was running short and we must bring food with us since we were such a large group and they hadn’t had a food drop in over a week because of bad weather. 

We returned to the Jungfraujoch and raided the kitchens for cheese, bread and other assorted foods that they were prepared to sell us. Our packs were now considerably heavier! Once more we put skis on in the tunnel before venturing back out into the wind, this time without skins since we were heading downhill. The visibility was about 50 yards but it had started snowing and was too bad to go the usual way down which avoided most of the crevasses to Konkordia. Instead Fred Charlet took us down through the heavily crevassed slopes, which he said he had done before! 

The clouds thinned as we got lower and with great relief we reached the plateau heading to Konkordiaplatz, the junction of 4 large glaciers. We poled along and then put on skins for the last section to the foot of the steps to the hut. Skis were left standing in the snow at the bottom. Then we went up two rickety ladders tied to the rock wall which led up to an impressive metal staircase which went up the cliff face for maybe 100m. This finished at a snowy track that led directly to the Konkordia hut (2850m). No views as we arrived but later we could see what an impressive position we were in, so high above the plateau below with big peaks all around.

Hut: Konkordia

Day 3, Tuesday 25th April 1995 Kranzberg to Konkordia

The weather had cleared slightly but we had a late start, waiting to see if the weather improved, and skied westwards across Konkordiaplatz and onto the lower slopes of Kranzberg, a peak just SE of the Jungfrau. The sun even came out at the bottom of the climb and it looked like we were in for a good day. 

We dumped the skis just below the final climb and then made our way up the steep snow slope to the top. The clouds were closing all around so although Kranzberg (3738m) was clear we didn’t have the extensive views we had hoped for. As we descended the clouds followed us down so the views disappeared. As we were crossing Konkordiaplatz back to the Konkordia hut the clouds started to briefly thin and clear around the two peaks behind the hut (Faulberg and Kamm) adding a bit of atmosphere to black and white landscape photos of skiers crossing the plateau. We returned to the Konkordia hut after 4 pm.

Peak: Kranzberg (3738m)

Hut: Konkordia

Day 4, Wednesday 26th April 1995 Wysnollen to Finsteraarhorn Hut

Another late start because of bad weather. There was lots of fresh snow, wind and it was still snowing. We returned to our skis below the hut and skinned up the Gruneggfirn to the Grünhornlücke col (3286m) and then down through heavy deep snow, and around to the east. Here we stopped for a team talk to decide whether to go straight for the hut or go up a peak. We agreed to go for the peak much to the amazement of Fred Charlet, our French guide. Fred said no French group would have gone up in such weather. We dumped our gear and skied up through more deep heavy snow and thick clouds. 

It was still snowing as we reached the top of the Wysnollen (3594m). There were no views, as if we had expected any! The ski down through the heavy snow was dreadful but we managed to find our gear again and set off for the hut. It was now very warm and oppressive. The final climb to the hut was steep, icy and a bit exposed just before the Finsteraarhorn hut (3048m). Another hut in a spectacular position and about 30 in the dorm.

Peak: Wysnollen (3594m)

Hut: Finsteraarhorn

Day 5, Thursday 27th April 1995 Gross Wannenhorn to Finsteraarhorn Hut

We started about 7.30am, skiing out from the hut and down to the plateau below with our ski edges chattering on the icy slopes. We stopped to put skins on the skis and skied up the Fieschergletscher southwards. It was warm to start with then a cool breeze came up and stopped us overheating as we climbed. There was a lot of light fresh snow everywhere and we were hoping it stayed like this for our descent. We climbed up to a saddle and then the steepish slopes from here led along a ridge and on to the main top of the Gross Wannenhorn (3906m). We had a brief glimpse of a view but nothing more. 

Then we geared up for the descent. The light snow had unfortunately transformed since our ascent into deep heavy porridge and gave us another difficult ski down. My skis were icing up so Jon waxed them for me on the hill, they were much better after this and slid through the wet snow much better. We were soon back to the glacier plateau below. It was now quite warm and we had to strip down to keep cool. The last section skiing to the hut was much more tricky than previously as the last bit of track to the Finsteraarhorn hut, across the tops of some cliffs, was now swept clear of snow and was sheet ice. One look beyond the cliffs below was enough to focus the mind on the task in hand!

Peak: Gross Wannenhorn (3906m)

Hut: Finsteraarhorn

Day 6, Friday 28th April 1995 Vorder Galmihorn to Reckingen

A clear blue sky day for a change. We were up at 5.15am and out by 6am, it was daylight, but only just, so we used head torches for the first few minutes. We were treated to a fantastic sunrise as we skied down the Fieschergletscher. Then it needed some poling along to reach the SE corner of the Finsteraarhorn where we stopped to put climbing skins on the skis. We climbed up the Galmigletscher, through the icefall, and I took lots of black and white landscape photos, including the one with the starburst sun and long shadows. As the sun came up the ice crystals in the snow sparkled all around us and made it look quite magical, or maybe it was just the thin air getting to me!

For some reason Fred went much higher than Jon as we crossed a plateau area, which made for some good photos. Then we traversed around into a steep corrie where we zig-zagged up below huge ice cliffs to reach the col at 3386m. We left our sacs here and headed up the last steep slope southwards to reach the top of the Vorder Galmihorn (3517m). We could see for miles, it was crystal clear with a few clouds hanging around the lower slopes of the larger peaks. To the north the Finsteraarhorn (4274m) was wreathed in clouds and the other way we could see to the white pyramid of the Weisshorn (4506m) with the Matterhorn (4478m) just beyond, 45 miles from us, and even Mont Blanc (4810m) some 70 miles away. The view compensated somewhat for the rest of the week! 

We returned to our sacs, geared up and skied down the Bachigletscher through lots of deep powder at the top, then some deep heavy snow, then spring snow and finally the dreaded breakable crust. There was lots of avalanche debris on both sides of the narrowing valley so we kept in the middle as much as we could. Jon and Fred were very anxious for us to ski past this area as quickly as possible. Finally we were skiing through avalanche debris and snow like porridge, it was now very warm and the snow was suffering from it. From here we took a forest trail through woods, more avalanche debris and mud slides, to fields beside the road. 

We came down a few hundred yards outside the village of Reckingen to finish our ski tour at about 12pm. Beers and lunch sitting outside in the warm sunshine at the Bahnhof Hotel in Reckingen finished the trip off nicely while we waited for the train to take us back to Grindelwald via Brig. We were back in Grindelwald by 6pm.

Peak: Vorder Galmihorn (3517m)

Saturday 29th April 1995 Travel Home

My flight home from Zurich to Manchester wasn’t until 7.30pm so I had several hours to wander around the Grindelwald area. I caught the lift to First and walked along towards Bachsee lake and took a few photos before returning to the station to catch the train to Interlaken and then on to the Airport. Jan picked me up from Manchester Airport and whisked me off home to the Peak District.

Camera

Mamiya 6 MF + 50 mm lens (wide-angle), carried in a CCS Warthog case

Nikon AF3

Film

Black and white: Ilford FP4 Plus and HP5 Plus 220

Colour: Fuji Sensia 100 slide/transparency film

Peaks

Kranzberg (3738 m), Wyssnollen (3594 m), Gross Wannenhorn (3906 m), Vorder Galmihorn (3517 m) 

Huts

Mönchsjoch, Konkordia, Finsteraarhorn

Equipment

Kastle Tour Randonee 180cm skis

Silvretta 404 Touring bindings and Harscheissen (ski crampons)

Kastle Collapsible Ski Poles

Pomoco climbing skins for skis (orange colour on left of photo)

Dynafit Tour Lite 2 boots

Mountain Technology 50cm ice axe

Camp Arctic 10 step-in crampons

POD Black Ice 50 litre rucsack