July 22, 2023
A down day in Monchsjochhütte
Meeting some cool Zurich folks
I woke up this morning to a stranger's alarm at the Grindelwald youth hosel. It was breakfast time, so I got up and grabbed some food. I ended up eating with one of my roommates. He had followed his girlfriend from the Netherlands to Bern. She worked in finance, he worked at a bike shop. He was just doing a weekend tour from Bern to Grindelwald. He offered me a place to stay in Bern if I ever needed it, and I told him thanks and that I'd let him know. I wasn't planning on heading back that direction, but you never know.
I made my way into town to buy a sleeping bag liner. I would need it at the hut. After dropping 30 Francs on a bag liner, I headed to the Eiger Express cable car. There are 2 ways to the Eiger glacier station: cable car, and train. They are both similar in price (or so I thought, the train is cheaper FYI), so I took the faster and more scenic cable car. I paid 214 Francs round trip. When I boarded the cable car, I was the only white person. Apparently Jungfraujoch is very popular with Asian tourists. Same story with the train going from Eiger Glacier to Jungfraujoch. The woman across from me spoke some English and I learned she was from South Korea. It was her second time visiting Switzerland.
Unfortunately, the Grindelwald valley was socked in clouds, so I didn't get much of a view from the cable car. The train went through a tunnel, speeding with a force that felt like an airplane taking off. When I got to Jungfraujoch, I did all the cheesy tourist exhibitions they had there. The most impressive was the observation deck at the top of the train station. I then started walking across the glacier to the Monchsjochhutte. I followed a group of mountain climbers. They were summiting the Monch this afternoon, then staying at the Monchsjochhutte. I asked them how much a guided tour cost, and they said about 1100 Euros. Out of my budget for sure, not to mention my complete lack of rock climbing experience. As I was walking across the glacier, the altitude started to affect me more. We were at about 12000 feet. It was below freezing, even at midday in July. There were a few inches of fresh snow that had fallen a couple days prior. I was out of breath, my head started pounding, and every exertion made it worse. When I got to the hut, I figured a bowl of soup and a beer might make things better. It did not. I crawled into my bunk and slept for 2 hours. I woke up around 4pm, and hung out in the main room of the hut. I played fetch with the resident hut dog, and talked with some other mountain climbers. I admired the wood interior, and the kitchen with a huge pot of lentil soup cooking over a wood stove.
Even though we were in the middle of a glacier field, the hut was still quite luxurious. When dinner was served at 6:00, I was seated with a bunch of random people, Some middle aged climbers, some French people, and a french girl, Anna. The climbers and Anna told me about the town she was from, apparently it was a popular stop on a religious pilgrimage route. They were shocked with I had no Idea what they were talking about. Anna had become separated from her group of travellers by chance. 8 out of 9 people in the group were foreigners working in Switzerland, chasing more opportunity and higher salaries. It seems like a popular thing for Europeans to do. We talked about French and American politics for a while, then she invited me to play cards with her group. We played a round of an uno-like game, then my headache got way too bad to stay up. I crawled into bed and passed out.
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