The big Bernese Oberland - game over winter

So we waited for a week for some weather! Our lease in Chamonix runs out at the end of the month and so we decided it wasnt quite time to hang up the ski's just yet, but to give it one last go in the high mountains of the Bernese Oberland. On this tour Chris and I started in Bernese village of Grindlewald famous for the Eiger and the view up its North Face...

16th May: Chamonix - Grindlewald - Jungfraujoch - Loutor - Hollandia Hut

A 3am start in Chamonix and a drive round to Grindlewald in time for the first train (the girls were taking New Blue on an adventure to Lake Como in Italy then picking us up at the other side of the mountains a week later). The train up the North Face was amazing.

The Jungfraujoch Mountain Train... here we go through the North Face of the Eiger and the Monch then end up at a col by the Jungfrau at 3454m

To the Louwotor from the Jungfraujoch

With a fantastic skin and over the biggest glacier in Europe (Aletsch) up to the Louwitor through big crevasses to a high point of 3738 we came upon completely fresh powder snow for a descent back down to 2900m...awesome skiing no other traces nobody here! 

We arrived at the Hollandia Hut in the afternoon ... this place is awesome!

17th May Hollandia Hut - Abeni Flue (3962m) - Grosser Aletschfirn - Konkordia Hut

Another awesome day..... an early morning skin up to the summit of the Abeni Flue, a great ski touring peak and more fresh mountain tracks back to the hut!

The route to the Abeni Flue, up left - down right.

Pleasant skiing in great atmosphere from the summit

Summit panorama

On the skin up

On route to the Abeni Flue summit, the hut is out of sight on the left of the crevassed area.

Top timing... what happens when the 'auto timer' on the camera is too quick for Chris. The Abeni Flue is a great skiing summit

After the ski we had a long glide down to the Konkordia Hut where we had 140m of steps to get up to the hut! A reminder of the effects of the glacial recession.

18th May, Konkordia Hut - Grosser Fiescherhorn (4048m) - Finsteraarhorn Hut

The guardian said the weather would be bad in the morning and clearing up at midday, so we decided to go for a small tour, up and over a col and up to the Wysnollen....that was the plan.

Anyway, it was sunny when we woke up so we went to ascend the Grosser Fiescherhorn from the Konkordi Hut then descent down to the Finsteraarhorn Hut. A much bigger, committing and fun outing.

The line of attack, up the valley, round the spur and then up the steepening (about 45 degrees on foot) to the col. From here we had two options, the Grosser or the Hinter, both 400m+

Unfortunately when we got to the col the weather had really come in... really bad news. A whiteout at 4000m generally isnt good news. Especially on ski. Infact we stopped at the col and didnt go for the summit, the extra 50m. We roped up, tapped some points into the GPS and blindly followed the little arrow pointing us to safety. Only once coming a little to close to a monster crevasse. 

Huge crevasses on this descent... fortunately the mist cleared

Coming out of the fog the feeling was amazing, really rewarding, to have worked hard to get out of the mess and have beautiful views of another valley... when many teams had achieved nothing today. This photo shows the hut with the Finsteraarhorn behind, this is another ski touring objective - the biggest peak in the Oberland.

19th May, Finsteraarhorn Hut - Grosser Wannenhorn (3905m) - Finsteraarhorn Hut

The guardian says it is the best ski ascent in the area, from our experience. It was. This massive mountain was great, cut a fresh track into the mountain on the way up - ski'd across the knife edge summit ridge. Took off the skins and just 'had it' all the way down cutting amazing s shapes into the snow!

Great views on the ascent, the busiest day for us in this rage with a whopping 3 parties on the same route... this place is nothing like Chamonix!

The best mountain snow I have ski'd, made life so easy

Chris with the perfect tracks, we could see these from the hut. Huge serac out of sight to the right

We returned to the same hut because they served good Rosti.

20th May, Finsteraarhorn - Galmihorn (3517m) - Reckingen (in the Valley)

We heard this ski descent was still in condition (in May!)so we went for it, from the hut we had an early start, up to the impressive snow whaleback of the Galmihorn, down a Col and down the most avalanche prone valley to the Swiss village of Reckingen.

More of the same really, no storied to tell, just amazing skinning (feeling fit now) amazing skiing and fantastic travel through the beautiful Bernese Mountains.

The view of the route from the top of yesterdays summit. The route goes from the Finsteraarhorn Hut (left) to the Galmihorn (right) and down the col to Reckingen.

 On the summit, thanks Chris for a great tour and some great photos.

This is the end of winter for us here in the Alps, time to pack away the skis and boots, dig out the rock climbing gear and get stuck in some more.

For now, we are all heading back to the UK for a little while, a month for me. I will be running lots of courses with pureoutdoor.co.uk and hopefully some time to get out cragging.

The Bernese Oberland Haute Route is a great place and this is a great place to be in May, when everywhere else is not in condition!