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Our final day and it was time to climb the Kranzberg.
Whether it was just fatigue, I'm not sure, but I struggled for the whole of this relatively cruisey climb.
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As you can see - well off the pace. Maybe the Gross-Wannenhorn took it out of me - you can clearly see the two rocky points that mark the true and lesser summits in the top centre of the shot - almost like Batman's ears.
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Just approaching the final section.
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Some interesting snow towards the end of the skin track. Once the sun got to work on this it was actually quite decent to ski on as long as you could avoid areas where it had already been skied and was a little inconsistent.
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After dumping the skis, Karl heads towards the last scramble to the top.
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Hang on, wasn't Karl in front? Some sketchy soft snow put Karl on his guard - but I had to beat him up something... |
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Looking back to where it started - the Jungfraujoch Station just below Karl's axe head with the Monch above.
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Lunch time again, well, brunch - it was around 10.30.
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Again, we could have waited for the snow to soften a little, but we had a bus to catch - eventually. |
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Finally heading towards the Lotschenlucke and our final descent. |
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My final bit of skinning of the 2007 season. |
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The Hollandiahutte - so called as it's construction was paid for by the Dutch Alpine Club I believe. It sits right on the Col and more importantly, you can skin/ski right up to it. Shame that we had decided against one last night here followed by a morning tour - but it was the easiest and least earned shandy of the trip!
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The final ski out - some great spring conditions, but a little heavy towards the end. The Langgletscher actually drops down pretty far with the peaks and glaciers on either side providing a great if a little oppressive backdrop to our final ski. |
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Look - no ladders!
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Looking back towards the Lotschenlucke. I said the surroundings were a little oppressive - I mean that in terms of how many slides there had been and the amount of avalanche debris we came through. I'm not sure if you can make it out, but there are the remains of a refuge at the top of the lateral moraine just to the left of the photo. If not, you can definitely see a small piece of mattress foam to the left of the small tree in the foreground. Apparently the hut was taken out by an avalanche earlier in the winter - I would be banking on it being around the same time that all the big ones went off in the Berrard valley (see my Mont Buet photos). |
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Job done. We almost managed to ski right down to Falferalp, a small hamlet, at 1,787 metres. From there we caught the regular minibus service that drops you in Blatten, where the main bus service links in with the rail network. We actually managed to join up in Blatten with another group who had booked the minibus privately and got a lift right back to Brigg, the car and civilisation... |
