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    A Long Walk in the Alps: the Eiger to the Matterhorn
    A Long Walk in the Alps: the Eiger to the Matterhorn
    A Long Walk in the Alps: the Eiger to the Matterhorn
    Ebook101 pages1 hour

    A Long Walk in the Alps: the Eiger to the Matterhorn

    By Pete Buckley

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    About this ebook

    There can be no more enduring and instantly recognizable symbols of the Alps than the Eiger and the Matterhorn. These two great mountains have inspired climbers throughout Europe and further afield while the villages of Grindelwald and Zermatt; nestling beneath their peaks have become world famous resorts. "A Long Walk in the Alps" recounts a journey that begins under the shadow of the Eiger's infamous north wall and finishes in the high meadows beneath the soaring ridges of the Matterhorn. The trail from Grindelwald leads firstly through the idyllic Jungfrau Region before heading off through high passes, forgotten valleys and sleepy alpine villages on the way to its destination in Zermatt.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPete Buckley
    Release dateJan 17, 2014
    ISBN9781311820051
    A Long Walk in the Alps: the Eiger to the Matterhorn
    Author

    Pete Buckley

    I'm Pete Buckley the UK based indie author of "The Colonel of Krasnoyarsk" a high speed adventure thriller in which the reader is introduced to Russian Agent Colonel Yuri Medev and Jim Bergman of the FBI who must overcome political differences and work together to defeat a dangerous enemy - perhaps some of our politicians should read it to find out how. I have just finished the next Yuri Medev adventure entitled "The Kirov Conspiracy" due for release soon, while previously I wrote a couple of travel stories about various wonderful places such as New Zealand and the Swiss Alps. Aside from writing, travel has always been a big inspiration with hiking, biking and the outdoors taking up much of my time when I'm not looking after the kids. Thanks for visiting Pete Buckley January 2017

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      Book preview

      A Long Walk in the Alps - Pete Buckley

      A Long Walk in the Alps

      By Pete Buckley

      Copyright 2013 Pete Buckley

      Smashwords Edition

      First published in paperback in 2008

      http://petebuckley.wordpress.com

      http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/petebuckley

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the Smashwords Store and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      (1) A New Route in the Alps

      (2) From Blackburn to the Bernese Oberland

      (3) Friday 13th on the Eiger

      (4) Smoked Salmon for Breakfast

      (5) Into the Wilds

      (6) A Lone Red Kite

      (7) Walking Off the Map

      (8) A Chill in the Morning Air

      (9) In the Valley of the Matterhorn

      (10) The Europaweg

      (11) The Long Walk Home

      Further information

      Introduction

      Leaving my ski poles in an upright V position, I settled down to wait for the snowmobile that would take me back down to Plan de Jeux. It would be dark in an hour and sleety snow gusted across the mountainside while the higher peaks merged into the iron grey ceiling just above. I tightened my hood against the rising wind.

      My knee no longer hurt now that I was sat down but the effort of trying to make turns on skis had risked worsening the injury and though I protested that I could have walked or at least limped down the slope, I felt a secret relief that the effort was over. I know that effectively being rescued when I wasn’t that badly hurt was like giving up but my instructor had said that a lift down was no trouble to anyone and given the lateness of the hour, she was probably right. Besides – I had never been on a snowmobile and was quite looking forward to it.

      Looking around I began to appreciate my surroundings a bit more. Alone, five thousand feet up a mountain, in rapidly deteriorating weather and approaching twilight – I was warm though and Plan de Jeux was little more than a mile away so my situation didn’t unnerve me. The only sound was the wind brushing the snow against my hood and jacket, any other noises there might have been in the forest were lost in the white swirling mass. Below through the trees, the faint lights of the village were starting to appear and much further down, the dark valley of the Rhone was almost lost from view as the winter darkness approached.

      This was my first time in the Alps in winter and I tried to imagine these hills above Torgon in the summer, green meadows dotted with grazing cattle and forest trails leading up to breezy summits with far off views. It would make good walking country this. Gradually, I became aware of a noise above the wind. It became louder, cutting through the muffling snow, rising and falling in strident tones – an engine. Then the lights appeared through the trees and I waved to the driver. My taxi had arrived.

      Chapter One

      A New Route in the Alps

      As the rain battered the window violently and Winter Hill once again disappeared from view behind the squalls, I thought back to the skiing trip and felt a sense of relief that the injury had been minor. I could have been sat here writing a story called Great Train Journeys of Switzerland or something similar. The English Summer was now upon us and I’d be back in the Alps in a little over a month

      The injury, while confirming my initial opinion – that skiing is dangerous – had turned out to be nothing worse than a bad sprain and the Glacier Express would have to wait until another time. Seriously though, I had enjoyed my first efforts at skiing and was maybe lucky to get away with nothing worse than a sprained knee. The sport is surely a more dignified way of descending a hill than on one’s backside although that same backside has a lot further to fall from a standing up position.

      It had been for some time now that I’d been thinking about doing a decent sized trek in the Alps, my experience so far consisting only of day hikes and easy summits. I was after doing a trip that could be done by any reasonably fit hiker in a normal fortnight’s holiday without having to walk 20 miles a day or risk winding up at the bottom of a crevasse. Just a look on the internet or in any hiking magazine reveals an endless list of possibilities – Chamonix to Zermatt by a choice of Haute Routes, the Tour du Mont Blanc (TMB), the Alpine Pass Route, the Oberland Haute Route as well as the Tour of Monte Rosa, the Circuit of the Matterhorn and many more. You can go in a group, self guided, backpacking, hut to hut, in hotels or on bike! Such is the level of choice available. I immediately thought however that it would add to the excitement if I could come up with my own route.

      Coming up with an original route though would be far from easy. It seemed that wherever I went there’d be little I could say that wasn’t already in the trekking companies brochures! Or was there?

      Lengthy examinations of a map of the Western Alps began to reveal that there was indeed a route linking 2 fantastic locations; a route that could follow mountain trails for much of its length whilst still having bad weather alternatives; a route that would traverse 2 Swiss Cantons from the northern rim of the alps almost to the Italian border as well as showing the walker some of the best mountain scenery in Europe. It couldn’t be booked as a package tour either – not yet anyway.

      The route would link 2 quintessentially alpine villages and their mountains which have become very symbols of the Alps themselves. My journey would take me from Grindelwald in the Canton of Bern south to Zermatt in the Valais - from the Eiger to the Matterhorn.

      As the route follows several ancient pathways through the mountains, it has doubtless been walked many times, at least in part, by villagers of Bern canton visiting relatives in the southern Valais for instance. Many sections of the route have been used as trade routes throughout history though I could find no reference to the route being done for its own sake and therein lay a good reason for me to try. Besides, though it may not be a new route in the Alps in the strictest sense of the word, I thought it would make a good chapter title.

      A possible downside of trying a route of my own though was that I had no itinerary to follow like the hikers on the Haute Route or TMB so I would effectively be making it up as I went along thus giving ample opportunities for getting lost. Certain sections would be fairly obvious such as the high Sefeinenfurka heading west out of the Jungfrau Region and the Gemmi or maybe Lotschen Pass from Kandersteg to the Valais but for much of the way I would be quite literally on my own.

      I had at least decided on the first and last days’ walking which was a start I suppose. I figured that if I was to walk from the Eiger to the Matterhorn then I should start with the wonderful Eiger Trail above Grindelwald and it followed that the finish, quite predictably, would be the Matterhorn Trail linking Schwarzsee with Zermatt. As for the rest of the route was concerned... Well; I’ve not thought about that yet but I suppose I’d work it out when I get there.

      It had seemed like the proverbial Good idea at the time but once I’d told a few friends and family type people that I intended to walk from Grindelwald to Zermatt I began to think that I might actually have to do this walk instead of just talk about it – after all, it was a long way over very big hills. I normally day hike and am not so used to walking somewhere new day after day and this was what bore down as a weight on my mind.

      Hotels it would

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