Grosser Aletschgletscher - Glacier Trekking (17.-18. August 2007)

For years I'd had the desire to explore the longest glacier of the European Alps: the 'Grosser Aletschgletscher' (length: 22km). Now the time had come to tackle this pending adventure.
We took the cogwheel railway to the 'Top of Europe' (see also www.top-of-europe.ch), the station is at 3454 metres asl, enjoyed the view from the platform of the Sphinx and then got onto the snow and roped up for glacier travel. Here I had a chat with Jutta and we found to our amazement that we both had studied at Massey University down in Palmy and been member of the Massey Uni Alpine Club!

Roped up.













At first the weather was perfect but soon we found ourselves tramping in the middle of a cloud that had drifted up from the lower altitudes.
There were some minor crevasses to be jumped over but apart from the slush snow travel was smooth. Around 11ish am we had a short break.




Break on the glacier in the middle of a cloud.

Marco announced that we were only one kilometre from the hut, that was what his GPS said. For me it was the first time since ages that I had not a map with me and also possessed no idea how long the distance to the hut would be. I eagerly had a look at the printout of a topo map that Jutta handed over. The cloud lifted a bit and I caught a glimpse of some rock face next to us. Judging by the 1 km to the hut information I figured out where we were. It was decided to press on and have lunch at the hut. Off we went and gradually the mist became more transparent and we got some better views. I found it odd that there should be a hut within 1 km. The scenery just didn't match the map. The only thing that got clear was that it was way more than 1 km!




View towards the Dreieckhorn / Aletschhorn with rocks of one of the moraines in the foreground.


We then had to negotiate some rough terrain of loose rubble covering the ice and some holes filled with glacial water. It required quite a detour and during a short stop to to take off the crampons we got a clear view of the outcrop hosting the hut. Strangely enough Marco insisted that it was again only one kilometre but I now had gotten my bearings again and claimed that I would take a swim in one of those tarns if that was only 1 kilometre. Instead of taking a dip I had again a closer look at the map and found that there were no coordinates, only grid lines. That was pretty useless if one wanted to get the coords to plug into the GPS. But now I knew where I was, well, roughly enough to define what kilometer square I was in. It was then easy to add the coordinates to the map. I then took my ruler to get the exact position of the hut, but, hey, the map was printed at some random scale: 1.5 cm to the kilometre!!! Arrrhg, but 1.5 is not such a bad factor, easy enough calculate the real distances. Right, 2.66km to the hut. To this day it remains a mystery what that other GPS was pointing at or where Marco got the coordinates from because no one in the group had a real topomap and our printout was a 1:50'000 map. Generally, a 1:25'000 map should be carried along on mountaineering trips.

Here's some wisdom for all of you guys: never trust anyone, always think for yourself and do proper route planning!

In more adverse conditions we would have been in trouble but as things were we continued our journey towards the hut. The most exiting moment was the crossing of a stream running along on the glacier! Here we had to take quite a jump to the other side, exciting stuff!
The final leg of the day was ascending the stairs up to the hut. They got to add more stairs now and then due to the retreat of the glacier! On the way up they even got signs indicating the ice level in a certain year.


Stairs up to the hut. Bugger global warming!






















Up at the hut we had a beer and then got maps from the hut warden and started planning the next day.




Topomaps showing the trail planning of day 2. (Remember that you can click on the pics to get full screen views)

















Planning table for day 2.



















We decided to form two groups next day as that should speed up the travelling speed.



Moonrise over the Lötschenlücke.

Day 2 started with a descent to the glacier where we roped up again. Soon afterwards the two groups went separate ways. Our team followed the pre-planned route while the other seemed to have some other plans. After negotiating a heavily crevassed area we got onto easy terrain. The ice had a general striping in flowing direction with waves perpendicular to it, thus looking like a choppy sea frozen instantly.

Frozen 'waves'


Progress was swift and on our way we came along many great holes in the glacier where I burned to rappel into to see what was at the bottom. However we had no time today and the holes might be immense: the glacier's got a depth of 900m under the Konkordiaplatz!!!
After a few kilometres we had to head for the side of the glacier and came upon the biggest crevasses yet! Finding a path through this maze was an interesting challenge that we solved without any backtracking.


Negotiating heaved and crevassed terrain.


Once we had reached solid rock again we enjoy lunch and then tramped on to the top of the Eggishorn. Quite an ascent but well worth the view from the top!




View over the 'Grosser Aletschgletscher' from the Eggishorn (2926m). The strange 'middle moraines' are clearly seen. They form out of the lateral moraines where two glaciers flow into each other.





Our team on the top of the Eggishorn: Andy and Jutta (the ex-MUAC members), Bettina and Reto.


While we enjoyed the view from the top we finally found the solution to the riddle why so many people had been tramping towards the glacier: there was a Greenpeace action going on and those guys were stripping off to protest against global warming. The only thing we could see from up there was a strangely brownish coloured spot on the glacier next to some more colourful area that consisted of all the clothing they are deposited!



Greenpeace protest against global warming on the Aletschglacier as seen from the Eggishorn. You need good eyesight for that one ...




A zoom showing the nudies and their gear.