Crazy when a Helicopter is cheaper than the train.

 

Doggles our Pilot.

The Jungfrau railway is the gateway to the mountains of the Oberland.  It is also, for its distance, the most expensive railway journey in the world.  From Grindlewald to the incorrectly named "Top of Europe" Station is currently a nice round €200 - one way.  [ I do concede there are deals which can make it less expensive.]

I had often thought there might be another way of getting to the mountains other than the train.  What I discovered is that if there is a party of 4 of you, then it is arguably cheaper and a lot faster to simply hire a helicopter.  

This is what we did:  Michael Ian and Paul and I left Chamonix at 8.00am. and drove to a field next to an insignificant industrial estate near the town of Gampel in the Valais. At first it wasn't exactly obvious where the field was.  At 9.45hrs the helicopter arrived.

some random field...

At 10.00hrs we took off.

11minutes later  we landed just below the summit Abni Flue.

Landing point.

Needless to say all this was very exciting and there was a fair amount of sensory overload, plus it was also very windy and bitterly cold.

Due to the wind we decided not to force ourway to the summit, but instead skied down the vast glacier, threading our way through the huge crevasse's all the way to the Konkordiaplatz.

We stopped to eat our sandwiches, which didn't take long because the wind had increased.  We skinned up to the bottom of the stair- case below the Konkordia Hutte and slowly [due to the wind] made our way the the Hutte.  

The stairs to Konkordia Hutte.

Chilling by the pool.

The Hutte was full to bursting, yet the staff were well organised and both dinner and breakfast were well organised.  Still the next morning we were pleased to find our selves all alone on the vast Aletschglacier as we made our way to Feischeralp.  

We left the glacier by a nice skin ascent to the tunnel, which entranced into the spectacular Feisch valley . We then skied over to Feischeralp and rode the gondola straight onto the station platform where we took the train back to the Gampel station.  Where waiting for us was an Air Glacier pick-up truck which took us back to the car.

Part Two of the Adventure

We then drove around to Les Diablerts where we had some unfinished business from last year, when we had been foiled in our attempt to climb the Aiguille Diablerets due to some violent winds.

With no plan of where we might stay the night - we really lucked out by turning up at an amazing hotel which was just brilliant .  The Hotel du Pillon.https://www.hoteldupillon.ch/en

I arrived down stairs for a pre dinner drink to find Paul making the drinks behind the bar.  The bar was run on a trust basis!  Dinner was excellent where we were all advised to have the Hotel's signature dish - a very elaborate cheese macaroni, washed down with some local vintage red wine.

Hotel du Pillon

View from bedroom window.

After a very comprehensive breakfast [where we were given a demonstration of various boiled egg crackers] we drove up to the Glacier 3000 lift station and headed up through the lift system and then on to the summit of Les Diablerets.

Yet as we got to the top we were enveloped in thick mist.  We hung around for a bout 10 minutes and the missed cleared and we were treated to impressive views.

Summit of Les Diablerts

On our fourth and final day we skied in Chamonix.  It was almost 10 years since Michael and Ian had completed the Haute Route with me. 32 years since Michael and I had climbed Mt Blanc together!  During the Haute Route when we had skied over and onto the Argentiere glacier we had done so in thick mist.  [Plus there had also been the Grands Montets cable car.]. This time we had a cloudless day.

So we skinned up from the top of the Herse lift and then skied down onto the Argentiere glacier before making our way down the piste to lunch at the Cremerie d'Argentiere  my favourite restaurant in the Chamonix valley.

Michael & Ian

Glacier des Rognans