A Journey to the Top of Europe: Jungfraujoch

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” – Mark Jenkins

When we woke up the next morning we were again surrounded by clouds. The kids wanted to check out a giant chess set that they had seen near the base station for the Cable Car to Mannlichen. This gave me an excuse to stay in bed and attempt to cull some of the thousands of photos I have taken this year. Except the view from my window proved most distracting.

It was quite lovely to watch the clouds clear, giving quick glimpses of snow capped mountains. It appeared that the clouds would slowly slide down into the valley below us onto the town of Lauterbrunnen and slowly slowly creep back up again.

Once Rob and kids returned all they wanted to do was play at home. My half hearted attempts to tempt them with a cruise on the Thunsee, or ride cable cars up to a playground at Allmendhubel or catch a bus to Trammelbach Falls all feel on deaf ears. Just quietly I was quite relieved and enjoyed a rest day looking at my view, sorting my photos and catching up on my blog.

The next morning we woke early and throwing back the shutters we were all thrilled to find that the clouds had cleared and there was nothing but glorious skies and snow capped mountains.

We got ourselves uphill to the Wengen train station for our expedition to the “Top of Europe”, at Jungfraujoch. The first stage of the journey was the train to Kleine Scheidegg.

On the train we chatted with some lovely people from England who were frequent visitors in the area. As we passed through the section of track before Kleine Scheidegg that a few days earlier had been like travelling through a tunnel of white cloud today was transformed into a breath taking alpine vista.

We had a very good view of the Eiger Glacier that we had last seen from our lunch spot in Bort (you may recall a photo of Rob doing a handstand with the Glacier in the background). My Aunt tells me that based on this photo the Glacier has sadly receded since her visit in 1986.

When we talked to our neighbours on the train about this they agreed that it had indeed been far more spectacular during the 1980’s and then receded very badly. They say it is now appears to be growing again and is in fact improved on just how bad it got.

During our travels we have seen many masterpieces created by man and yet it is the wonders of Mother Nature that leave deeper, more lasting impressions. It is so sad therefore that man’s footprint on our planet can do such damage to nature’s wonders.

Boarding our train for Jungfraujoch we sat on the left hand side of the train. For anyone following in our footsteps try to get a seat on the right hand side, both coming up to Kleine Sheidegg and onto the Jungfraubahn.

In terms of fantastic views of the mountains the train journey from Wengen to Kleine Sheidegg is probably the best we have seen. While I am very pleased we had our wonderful day up the mountain, if you were running short on time, or money for that matter which is easy to do in Switzerland, a trip to Kleine Sheidegg on a sunny day would be spectacular in itself. 

The trip up to Jungfraujoch from Eiger Glacier is via a tunnel carved in the mountains. I had been warned that it could be long and somewhat tedious for the children though we found it very enjoyable.

There are a number of five minute stops inside the tunnel, where side tunnels lead to windows cut into the side of the mountain. Eiger Glacier, the first stop on the journey, is not one of these five minute stops and when a man from out carriage got off to take a look the doors closed and the train moved on, leaving him behind, much to the amusement of his family and his fellow passengers.

Julian was therefore very concerned and unhappy when we wanted to get out to take a look. Rob stayed with him but he could not be convinced that we would be back on in time. The next stop he gripped my arm trying to stop miss, so by insisting he come to we were able to take in the view and then return before the two minute warning.

When we arrived at the top we found ourselves in a snowy wonderland and immediately wished for sunglasses it was so brilliantly white. Rob and I had originally imagined that we would stay around two hours, until midday, and return home for lunch with a list of plans for the afternoon. These plans, Trammelbach Falls, Murren and playgrounds at Almendhubel, never eventuated and if it was up to the kids we would still be up there playing in the snow now.

They have created many attractions for visitors to enjoy during their visit. The facility mostly consists of tunnels inside the mountain, which brought to mind a space station or set from a post-apocalyptic movie.

We took a super fast lift up to the Sphinx, a weather station right at the top of the saddle between Jungfrau and Monch. While the views were simply amazing the kids just wanted to get into the snow.

And so we continued on the tour route and looked at the huge snow globe, visited the ice caves, where we slipped and slid past ice sculptures and, eureka, we had found our way outside.

The indicators told us it was zero Celsius outside but with a thermal layer, and two others we were quite hot. And so Emma immediately started building a snow man.

As Julian bent down to start digging a fellow traveller indicated to me that she was going to through a snowball at him. I nodded my agreement and then it was on, the great snow ball fight.

It was fast and furious fun with Emma joining in as did a second young lady on the other side. With lots of giggling and kicking up of snow it went on and on, entertaining the crowd. When it was over our new friends insisted on a photo and I’m sure without a language barrier we would have declared a draw.

After lunch in a cafeteria with a spectacular view we retraced our steps through the station to the far end were we found an area called Snow Fun. Outside in the brilliant sunshine people were racing along a zip-line, skiing and riding on sleds. The kids had found their snowy paradise.

We asked to hire two sled,s one for a child and one adult with the plan being to share them. This was not allowed so we paid for the kids who were given wrist bands allowing them unlimited sledding time. The lady suggested that it would be okay for us to go down with them the first couple of times which was very kind.

In retrospect the kids were far better off without us riding with them as our weight made the ride much faster. After my first and only thrilling  run down the hill with Julian we were rammed from behind by another man and his child so after taking the moving footpath back uphill Julian wasn’t keen to go again. So Rob took Julian’s sled and he and Emma head down this hill. This lasted one turn and Julian grabbed the sled from Rob and spent the next two hours racing Emma.

By the time we left it was nearly four o’clock and we were all bright red with sunburn, with my lips blistered for a week afterwards. The one negative about the whole wonderful experience was the queueing system for the train back. There were many people waiting in the queue with us and people would walk straight past the queue to jam into the sides near the turnstiles. Once allowed through the turnstiles it was pandemonium and I was concerned about the kids being knocked down. Once we reached the train I had Emma and Julian get on first, but as I stepped up onto the train I was pushed out by a man who climbed through blocked the door and started pulling his family through one by one over the top of the people trying to get in. It was truly frightening but luckily the kids found seats and sat waiting for us. Once I got through to them and sat down a lady pushed Emma roughly over and waved her family over to sit in the seat Emma had for her and Rob, who was still nowhere to be seen. Seeing red at her handling of Emma I said firmly “no”and pulled her from the seat. The kids eyes were popping out not used to seeing their mum so assertive but this was definitely a different world to quite sleepy Western Australia.

Anyway all is well that ended well, in fact everyone got a seat and so all the silly nonsense was a waste of energy for all the pushy impatient people and perhaps a result of poor organisation. I would advise going home a little earlier when there is less of a rush. Speaking of a rush, today really was such exhilarating exciting adventure and one of those days to stand out in the memory for years to come.

We may have missed a lot of the places we planned to see but this may one day provide an excuse for us to return to the beautiful Berner Oberland.