Although the sun
had unexpectedly returned to the Grimselpass the previous afternoon,
treating us to warm afternoon sunshine
during our descent from theSidelhorn, we could not hold out such hopes when we woke up on
Tuesday morning. The initially clear morning air soon started to form
wispy clouds and by the time we had finished breakfast and started to
slip on our hiking gear many of the peaks to the west, including the
Sidelhorn, were already hidden from our view and we were fairly
certain that rain wouldn't be far behind. However, it's not everyday
you get a chance to hike to within touching distance of the Rhone
Glacier, which was our plan for the day, and so resolved to give it a
try and turn around if it got too bad.
Setting off east
from the Grimselpass we passed the Hotel Alpenrosli and the small
chapel to join a waymarked path that threaded it's way up a rocky
hillside, on the lower slopes of the ridge that hid the Rhone Glacier
from our view. The way was steep but having had 2 days enjoying a
shorter bike ride and a shorter hike we were feeling surprisingly
fresh and raced up the 600m ascent. Weaving our way through rocks,
the path underfoot slowly changed from loose, sandy gravel to bare
stone and rockfall from the cliffs to our left. As we crested the
ridge to get our first look at the tongue of the glacier, we glanced
back over our to motorhome at the Grimselpass and the cloudy Bernese
Alps beyond and could see the mist was heading our way quickly.
Traversing the
rocky mountainside as quickly as we could we managed to enjoy another
10 minutes of relatively clear skies before the mist swiftly engulfed
us, just as the Rhone Glacier was coming into sight. Oh well, we
thought, at least we tried, it's just not our day this time. Luckily
however, it soon started to rain! Not usually a welcome arrival but
this time it cleared the low hanging mist and reopened our view down
to the Rhone Glacier a few hundred metres below our cliff side path.
We slowly picked our way for around a kilometre over the enormous
boulders which the 'path' was marked across, each few steps revealing
another piece of the glacier, until we finally reached a shoulder
where the entire glacier was in view, all 9km of it. Sweeping down
from snow covered cliffs in the far distance, the glacier then made a
massive arc into the shelter of our cliff face before levelling off
and running down to the end of the hanging value where it finished in
a bright blue pool. It was magnificent, despite the persistent
drizzle.
Wanting a closer
view Esther left her pack with me and dashed further along the path
which descended right down to the glaciers edge. Stopping at a handy
weather station just a hundred metres or so above the ice, close
enough to get a sense of the huge crevasses and massive undulations,
she returned full of adrenalin. The size and power of the ice,
trapped in frozen flow is awesome and being so close gives a feel for
how it was possible for the vast European ice sheets to carve these
enormous valleys despite the fact that only a tiny remnant is left
today.
With mist starting
to return we decided to head back to the motorhome before we lost
sight of the waymarkers completely and carefully recrossed the now
slippy rocks and boulders to reach the start of the descent. About
halfway down the mist lifted and we were treated to a relatively
clear view over the Bernese Alps for a moment, before the clouds
closed again in front of us. We were also lucky enough to get
chatting to an elderly couple who had been visiting these hills for
50 years and had been up above the glacier looking for crystals and
rock samples, which they were kind enough to share with us, using a
mixture of our GCSE German and their conversational English.
Arriving back at
the motorhome we couldn't help noticing that for the third day in a
row since arriving at Grimselpass that we felt incredibly happy and
peaceful, more so than on most of our trip so far. Perhaps it was the
complete lack of any hustle and bustle, no grocery store, no
internet, no TV and hardly any people, but the feeling of isolation
bought a deep sense of calm. As the sun set and the clouds enveloped
our motorhome completely we felt sad that we would have to move on
the next morning (as we had run out of food!), but also grateful to
have discovered such a quiet spot to have spent the past few days.
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