Karl at the station in Grindwald, with the North Face of the Eiger behind. This is the first page of five, following a trip to the Bernese Oberland with Karl.

After dumping the car in Brigg we took advantage of the fantastic Swiss rail network and headed to Grindwald. Retrospectively we realised we could have caught the train all the way from Chamonix to the Jungfraujoch in one hit. But that would require far better planning and an early start on our part - fat chance! Big thanks to Karl as he organised everything on the trip - all I had to do was turn up.

After a night in the hostel at Grindwald we caught the early train to Kliene Scheidegg where we changed onto the Jungfrau Railway - a fairly up market Montenvers with a price to match would be an understatement! Imagine a wagon for all the packs and skis coming down from the Mer de Glace...

Those Swiss love to tunnel...

...the train even stops twice inside the Eiger and you have a few minutes to head off into some viewing galleries.

The first of these is the Eigerwand Station, which gives you a view down part of the legendary North face. this is as close as I'll ever get to it! The station is at 2,866 metres - if your attempting the North Face you still have another 1,104 metres of climbing ahead.

There is an earlier opening onto the North Face - the Gallery Window - made famous by one of the earliest disasters involving attempts for a first ascent. Although the train doesn't stop here, I just happened to be looking out of the window as we passed - there was a group huddled around the outside looking in! Hope they made it up OK.

The Jungfraujoch station is an impressively large complex tunneled out of the mountain. We skied from the bottom right of the complex - below the Sphinxstollen, (the highest building in the shot).

The peak on the right of the photo is the Monch - one of numerous 4000 metre peaks in the Oberland. The aim of this trip wasn't to climb any of these - that's for next time!

Looking in the opposite direction and you can see all of our climb for our first day in the Oberland. The route skirted between the rock band and crevasses off Karl's right shoulder and then switch-backing to the snowy dome of the Louwihorn - i.e.; the lowest point that could just about be described as a 'summit' in this shot!!

Part way up the skin, looking down the Jungfraufirn towards the Konkordiaplatz.

The red arrow is pointing to the Konkordia Hut, our destination for the first two nights and the fourth. The blue arrow marks the start of the climb on day two - up the edge of the serac field, guarding access to the Ewigschneefald. The pink dashes mark the lower half the decent from the Trugberg which was our highest point on the second day. The green arrow marks the start of our climb on Day Three and the green dot is above the Gross Wannenhorn - the peak we reached on Day Four.

Although our climb on this first day was only a few hundred metres, its worth noting in retrospect that a big feature of the trip was the amount of flattish ground we might cover, crossing these huge glaciers to get to our main climb - especially when compared to many of the tours I've done in and around the Chamonix area.

On top of the Louwihorn - 3773 metres. Not far behind me and you had great views down into the valley - but unsure if we were near a cornice, we kept clear.

The Swiss gent in the photo was local and on a day trip - apparently he had got a 'bit' lost and borrowed our map to get his bearings - ah, those organised Swiss!!

Now that's a cheeky Choucas!

After a bite to eat we started our descent off the opposite side to which we'd come up. The snow was fairly hard, but definitely skiable, and the back drop pretty impressive.

Another big feature of the trip was often the number of alternative descents for most of the routes - meaning we could usually find at least a couple of pitches on each descent with just the right aspect for the time of day. As it was only just after midday, Karl opts to negotiate a small serac field with an impressive tower to get to a more southeastern facing slope.

I say 'sweeps down' - it was a long pole push in the mush across the Konkordiaplatz. You might just make out the hut on the larger image - to the right of the snow patches on the rock. Wonder how you get up there?

"What steps?!"

Some refuge - complete with terrace bar.

As we'd kept our itinerary short for the day we arrived pretty early - the terrace soon filled up, with people enjoying the mid-afternoon sun and sorted out their boots and other kit to dry.

A final shot I took just above the refuge. Looking back from the Konkordiaplatz towards the Jungfraujoch. The Louwihorn is just out of sight in the main bank of cloud near the centre of the photo. The peak nearest to us is the Kransberg and our high point for Day Five. Our ski down from the Trugberg on the second day would come down the obvious snow slope on the right of this shot.