Day 11 - Coming home

We were up at 8am and after breakfast, all the Scouts completed ther packing. The idea is to close down parts of the chalet piece by piece. The washrooms were closed off last night, next the bedrooms. Once they were packed we cleaned up all the dust and rubbish and moved bags down a floor. Next step was the dining room, and so it carried on through the building, taking the bags and Scouts up to a gazebo while we finished up. We had an inspection at noon, luckily including Tom from KISC as a German speaker. We had had a mirror break last night, but he was able to explain that the fitting was wrong. We got charged Sfr20 for 3 missing spoons and a cut in a mattress. Our coach was there for 12.30pm and we headed back to Basel - some traffic delays but we were there in plenty of time. We got our bags checked in and then went through security, although Max seemed to have metallic ankles which delayed us a little. We were then sat around the airport playing cards and perspiring gently - my, it was warm there. Our flight was delayed 35 minutes, then we boarded the plane and were delayed a little more. On the flight, we ate some spare rolls and snack bars, and I interviewed everyone about their favourite moments. Back in the UK, and we had a long queue for passport checks. Reclaimed our baggage and met everyone in arrivals. It is always a relief to know we have delivered everyone back safely.

Day 10 - Team Building, Backwoods and Rodelbahn

It was an earlier start today, up at 7.30am and after breakfast the 10-12 year olds went to do backwoods workshop while the 13 & 14 year olds were doing team building. The backwoods workshop consisted of learning how to filter water, build a shelter and light fires (no matches) then cook dampers on them. The team building involved an arctic expedition, where they had to work together to escape a sinking boat, build a polar bear-proof shelter, signal for help then cross the ice to rescue (you had to use your imagination a bit!). After lunch, we walked back to town then on the gondola up to Oeschinensee for the rodelbahn (toboggan run). It was very busy but everyone managed to get a decent go, and had a great time. We came back to the chalet about 6pm and had dinner then cards and some preliminary packing.

Day 9 - Ice Climbing Workshop and Glacier Hike

The over 14 group were up in Frundenhutte overnight; they didn't sleep that well though because there were a load of Americans there who kept them awake until the early hours. They were out on the ice in the morning, walking across the glacier behind the Hutte to get to an ice face where they had to wait awhile while the pinkies rigged up the anchor points. Most of them had a good attempt at climbing, and then started using just one axe and the crampons. I just asked Hannah for some insight into ice climbing to which she responded "we climbed on ice". Helpful. They hiked down after lunch and went to the lake (Oeschinensee) for a swim. They were then booked in to Wet & Wild at the swimming pool so they had a double swim session! The remainder of the group were up at 4.45am and out of the chalet at 5.15 to walk down to the train station. We had to change at Frutigen, Spiez and Brig then onto the mountain train to Betterntal telstation then get the cabin lift up to Bettmeralp for 8.30am where we met our guides Peter & Bernhard (who are 66 and 73!). We headed up out of Bettmeralp to the crest of the hill then down through the Aletsch forest, which is part of the UNESCO world heritage site. Some of the Swiss pines are 700 years old and it was lovely and cool walking through there. We had half our lunch then got our crampons on and walked on the ice about 11.30am. It was really hard work as it is mainly up hill. The glacier is getting lower by about 3m a year, so I was about 21m lower down than I was when was there in 2009; no wonder it seemed harder! We walked on the ice for about 90 minutes then crampons off and we walked up about 50m out of the valley. The temperature difference between the ice and the rest of the valley was really marked, so we were relieved to remove jumpers etc. We then had a really hard walk up about 500m out of the valley with only a couple of very short stops. After that we had to drop down to Bettmeralp where we met up with Hugh, Roger & Roger (who had a very pleasant day in Bettmeralp and up at Bettmerhorn). The cabin lift wasn't working when we got there so we had to wait awhile. We ended up back in Kandersteg just after 7pm then a dinner of pizza, sauté potatoes and pasta. Early night all round.

Day 8 - Frundenhutte, Jacob's Ladder and Zip Wire

It's an earlier post today for good reason we wil get to in a minute! We allowed them another 8.30am lie in and actually allowed breakfast up to 9.30am (we're so kind). Once everyone was up it was a relaxed morning with more confectionary and gift purchases and many games of cards. At 12.30pm the over 14s met their pinkies and caught the bus into town then the gondola up to Oeschinensee before beginning their hike up to Frundenhutte, which is around 1,000m of vertical ascent. They arrived around 5.30pm. At 2pm, the 12 & 13 year olds were doing Jacob's Ladder, which is 8 horizontal spars increasingly far apart. In pairs they climb up it, being around 10m up at the top. They all did really well. The 10 & 11 year olds did the 70m zip wire and that was lots of fun too - they had 3 goes each. We had an early dinner then thorough kit check for everyone as we need to be up at 4.45am tomorrow for our hike on the Aletsch Glacier.

Day 7 - Swiss National Day

Good morning everyone. Apologies for our lack of posting last night, but it was a busy evening. Today is Swiss National Day, which is a pretty big thing here. It is 725 years since Switzerland was established as a country, and 109 years since Scouting was established with the first camp on Brownsea Island. This year, it is also 93 years since KISC was established. We allowed a lie in until around 8.30am, as the Scouts all need more sleep in order to do physical activities. After breakfast we went up to the sports field on the campsite for the aerobics, which was really the pinkies leading the Macarena, YMCA etc. The activities started at 10.30am, and were mainly up here at KISC rather than down in the town, a reversal of when we were here in 2013. There were some activities we have planned anyway, like backwoods workshop and the zip wire, but also loads of other things - cow football, slacklining, the dunking stools, crate stacking, sumo, solar cooking, low ropes and many, many more things besides. We had the Scouts back at 1pm for lunch, then at 2pm the Carnival started. This was back on the sports field, and involved loads of things from different countries - mainly foods to try. Some of the activities were still running too. At 5pm we had everyone back here then at 5.15pm was the international barbecue. This is an impressive logistical exercise in feeding a huge number of people in a very short space of time. We had a couple of hours of downtime then into uniform and we all congregated back on the sports field. There were Scouts from 33 different countries, and each was represented by a torch. It was an impressive array of coloured uniforms and badges, and many had flags too. We had a very short speech from Felipe (the director, who is responsible for the whole centre at age 27!) then formed up into a long column and paraded down the road into the town. The route was lined with locals who were waving, and the parade was making loads of noise (intentionally). It was dark by the time we got into town, and there was a bonfire outside the station in the square where we congregated, and alphorns playing (although they were hard to hear above the hubbub). Another couple of (very short) speeches and then we had a firework display, with lots of oohs and ahhs. We headed back up to our centre about 10am and had a quick hot chocolate then bed time.