FAULHORN

February 2018

I hadn’t been in the mountains much the last few months, partially due to exams and deadlines, and so I couldn’t wait to get back out there. The opportunity finally presented itself when we made our way to Grindelwald in the Bernese Highlands to go hiking in one of the most spectacular places the Alps have to offer.

The trail begins after a cable car ride up to First and leads towards the frozen over Bachalpsee into the beautiful scenery. Every time you look over your shoulder, you can see the enormous Eiger Nordwand and many other peaks above 4’000m / 13’000ft rising out of the ground. Pushing further up the incline in the opposite direction, we eventually made it to the summit of the Faulhorn in the late afternoon. The view from up there was just incredible in all directions and even though it was absolutely freezing with a nasty cold wind, we stayed for quite a while to see the whole place bathed in the evening light.

Since they’re so light to carry, we had brought some snow saucers to make the descent down the other side of the mountain a little faster. There aren’t any big drops and the winter hiking trail is quite wide, so it wasn’t very dangerous. I still managed to twist my knee pretty badly though when I got a little too much speed and crashed into a snowbank. I still got back to the car alright, but definitely struggled walking the few days after it happened. This was only a small damper on what had been an amazing day though.