Jungfrau

July 2019

After having climbed the Monch I rested the rest of the day in the Monchsjoch hutte. My fellow climbers took the train down, two other people would come up in the evening to climb Junfrau with me the next day. The climb to Jungfrau would be way longer then Monch so some rest was not such a bad idea.

The Monchsjoch hutte enjoys great views over the surrounding glaciers. I could already see most of the route that would take us to the top of the Jungfrau itself. It did not look too difficult, but I was still a bit nervous. Just like the day before I would be climbing with people with zero mountaineering experience.

Julian and Jan arrived late in the day, but just about early enough for me not to start worrying about them. There lay a thick mist, so they would have to wait for tomorrow to see where they really were. The forecast looked very good. so that was one thing. They both reported a bit of a headache, but for the rest the signs were all good.

We woke at around 2:30am and got on our way at 3:30. The weather was completely clear, it would be a beautiful day no doubt. The hike to the base of the climb was long. We needed to hike over the glacier for well over an hour. There was no clear track and I was not completely sure where exactly the climb started. It goes without saying that we lost our way in no time and just walked towards the foot of the mountain in good faith.

One of the other climbers had already taken a detour the day before to checkout the start of the climb. I saw his light north of us. He signaled with his light that we needed to come his way. I was inclined to listen, but there was another confident looking group right in front of us who seemed to disagree. I remembered that he had made kind of a crazy impression on me last night. He was climbing all by himself and I thought that he might be taking a shorter but more difficult route.  I decided to follow the group in front of us.

We made it to the very foot of the rock. After having climbed for 50 meters I knew we had taken the wrong way. The rock was extremely unstable and there were no track whatsoever. We retraced our steps and went further north. There we found a clear track over a steep snow slope that took us to the rock. The crazy Japanese guy had been right…

We removed our crampons and started climbing over the rock. After a short while there was a small steep section. We did not fix a rope here, but there was some actual falling hazard here. Aside from this section the climb over the rock was easy and pleasant. Before I knew it we were on top of the shoulder. We put our crampons back on and continued over the snow. The sun was rising at this point. The clear weather gave us a spectacular view south.

We were climbing in the cohort of that day which gave a save feeling. I tried to hurry a bit so that we would remain near the other groups for safety.

The snow section of the climb is very straightforward. We quickly gained altitude. After an hour of climbing the snow goes steep up to the ridge, maybe 50 to 60 degrees. There was a clear track and it was remarkably easy to get to the ridge.

Once on the ridge it began to feel like a real climb. The southern slope droped straight down for over 700 meters and in the south we could see all the way to theWaliser alps.

We followed the ridge towards the Jungfrau. Just before the climb to the actual top we needed to traverse a portion of steep snow. The snow was not very stable and the perpendicular cliff right below us made the operation a bit scary. Once across we needed to climb some steep mixed terrain. Jan however started to feel the height, it was getting a bit too much for him and he opted to return.

I did not want to leave him behind so I decided to turn back. I wasn’t very dissapointed. I had already made it to the top om Monch the day before and the climb. The view from the ridge was nice and we had already had some fun sections. Maybe I’m getting old, but I was completely fine with turning back right under the top.