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.