by Diccon Bewes
It is from Wengern Alp that avalanches are seen and heard in greatest perfection … the attention is first arrested by a distant roar, not unlike thunder, and in half a minute, a gush of white powder, resembling a small cataract is perceived issuing out of one of the upper grooves or gullies; it then sinks into a low fissure, and is lost only to reemerge at a lower stage some hundred feet below; soon after another roar, and a fresh gush from a lower gully, till the mass of ice, reaching the lowest step, is precipitated into the gulf below.
The scale of the whole drama is almost lost against the backdrop of such giant mountains, so Murray goes on to remind us that these avalanches are “caused only by the rupture of a portion of the glaciers” and “at each discharge whole tons of ice are hurled down the mountain, and that the seeming dust to which it is reduced includes blocks capable of sweeping away large trees, if such occurred in their course. During the early part of the summer three or four such discharges may be seen in an hour.”
In all the times I have walked over Wengernalp, I have never witnessed such a spectacle. Once there was a distant rumble that made me inspect the mountain opposite for evidence of tumbling debris, but nothing more. I think it’s simply a case of there now being so much less snow and ice that the daily discharge is no longer brought on by the sheer weight and volume of ice reacting to the warm sunshine. What once would “much enhance the interest of a visit to the Wengern Alp” is now a rare event, although the walk from here up to the pass at Kleine Scheidegg is still one of the best in Switzerland (for non-walkers, that is). Dedicated Swiss hikers most likely think it is something for old ladies.
The line from Grindelwald up to Kleine Scheidegg opened in 1893
We get off at the top of the WAB line in Kleine Scheidegg, the crossover point for trains to and from Grindelwald and Wengen. It’s an odd place, where half the world comes to eat, drink and change trains, but it’s really in the middle of nowhere. Except that it’s at the foot of the Eiger and in the heart of the area that every Victorian visitor wanted to see, hence the great train links. The BOB and WAB lines were built for tourists, as simple as that. When they opened in 1890 and 1893 respectively, there was no other reason to go to those places. They were, and still are, only financially viable because of the thousands of tourists wanting to enjoy the landscape of the Bernese Oberland and not take all day to get there. A main road eventually made its way up to Grindelwald but Wengen remains car-free, as does Mürren on the opposite side of the Lauterbrunnen valley. Even in the age of the automobile, some places prosper without cars.
In June 1907, an article entitled “A Wonderful Railway Excursion” appeared in The Traveller’s Gazette, the Thomas Cook newspaper that had replaced The Excursionist. It extolled the virtues of the train trip over Wengernalp for a certain segment of the travelling public:
We may remark that it would seem to be an ideal railway journey for honeymooners. It gives them a rest. For the most affectionately disposed Algie and Angelina could not possibly be absorbed in anything but the grand and glorious scenery.
The price of the return trip from Interlaken to Grindelwald via Wengen was then more than a bob or two: 18/6, about £60 in today’s money, or two-thirds of the cost of that same ticket now.
A plate of Älplermakkaroni – a dish of macaroni and diced potatoes in a creamy cheesy sauce, served with apple purée – while sitting in the sun with a view of the Eiger: heaven at 2061m up and my normal indulgence when at Kleine Scheidegg. In the summer it’s after a suitably hearty walk, and usually with some goats that happily trot over to lick the sweat off your arms; in winter it’s to escape the endless fog that settles in the valleys. There’s been a hotel here since 1840 and it hosted all the great Alpine climbers before their attempts on the North Face of the Eiger; some of them made it back down to stay another night. Guests – and the media – followed every moment of the life-and-death climbs from the terrace with telescopes; an Alpine version of gladiatorial combat, with an ogre replacing the lions.
However, the railway doesn’t stop here, thanks to the vision of a businessman from Zurich who loved both trains and mountains, so decided to combine the two. Adolf Guyer-Zeller planned to build a modern miracle, an electric line from Kleine Scheidegg up inside the Eiger and then on underground to the summit of the Jungfrau, a daunting 4158m above sea level. The idea was ambitious to say the least, and not universally popular – one politician wanted reassurance that the mountains would not be sacrificed for money – but the Swiss government gave the go-ahead and construction started on 27 July 1896. The 9.34km Jungfraubahn railway (nearly all of which is underground) would take 16 years and cost 16 million francs to build, although it didn’t quite reach the summit of Jungfrau and Guyer-Zeller died in 1899, long before it was completed.
Excavating the tunnels of the Jungfraubahn was scenic but dangerous work
The engineers and mechanics were Swiss, but most of the miners were Italian, clearing the land with picks and shovels and carrying electricity pylons on their shoulders. They had to work on Sundays, handle dynamite in cramped conditions and sleep three men to a bed, all for 5.20 francs a day, from which 2.30 francs were deducted for food. Perhaps that’s why there were six strikes and the management had to restore order with the threat of armed force. The camp at the edge of the Eiger glacier, where the workmen lived all year round, was cut off from the world each winter, although the work carried on inside the mountain. All the provisions had to be delivered before the snow arrived and had to last until spring. The company archives reveal the annual shopping list:
12 tons flour
1,500 litres of wine
2 tons potatoes (for the Swiss)
800kg macaroni (for the Italians)
3,000 eggs
400kg coffee
50,000 cigars
4 tons meat
30 tons coal
The perishables were stored in the crevasses of the glacier. Even while the men were working on the upper stretches of the line, the first sections opened as tourist attractions. Galleries were cut into the face of the Eiger so that eager passengers could gaze out across the glaciers, or venture out onto wooden walkways perched on the edge of the icy abyss.
On 1 August 1912, when the station at Jungfraujoch officially opened, it was planned as another one of the stations en route to the top. In the end it became the Top of Europe: at 3454m up it was Europe’s highest railway station, a record it still holds. The summit of Jungfrau, with a lift inside the mountain, was never reached, due to the onset of war and a lack of funds, although that doesn’t mean the line was a failure – exactly the opposite. It was the crowning moment of the trains-for-tourists craze that had swept across Switzerland for four decades and was an instant hit, with 38,705 passengers in the first year, a figure that had grown to 833,000 by the line’s 100th birthday.
Catch the train today and it’s like travelling in a mobile United Nations, with barely a Swiss voice to be heard. No wonder the announcements come in multiple languages. The two Eiger stops on the way up are still there, letting people trot off and see the views, though these days there’s plexiglass to prevent the gales coming in and people jumping out.
After 50 minutes inside the mountain, it’s quite jarring to step out into the open air at Jungfraujoch, perched on the saddle between the Mönch and the Jungfrau. The light is blindingly bright, the air bitingly cold and your feet feel distinctly heavier than your head. For me, the trip up to Jungfraujoch isn’t just about the panorama from the top, as wonderful as it is; neither is it about being up at Europe’s highest train station, which makes some people giddy with excitement. For me, it’s the trip itself and all that it took to achieve that. Thanks to the brains of Adolf Guyer-Zeller and the guts of his workforce, we can take one of the world’s most amazing train rides up inside one of the world’s most famous mountains. That would be an remarkable achievement today, let alone 100 years ago, but let’s not forget the human cost.
Thirty men died building this
pinnacle of tourist engineering. And that’s all it was, and has ever been: a tourist attraction. So it’s rather sad to see so many of today’s visitors rush past the new, and long overdue, memorial to those who gave their lives so that we could live our dreams. A procession of simple wooden blocks, each engraved with a name and date(s), lines one of the tunnels at Jungfraujoch station. All but one of the names are Italian, one Adolf among the Paolos, Giovannis and Angelos. The first death was in 1898, the last in 1912; many have no birth dates, but where they are given it shows how young the men were – for example, Virginio Furlotti was only 18 when he died in 1908. Modern visitors might grumble at paying almost 200 francs for a return ticket from Interlaken (without a rail pass), but if they stopped to think of what it actually took to build the line, there would be no complaints.
Even without going all the way up to Jungfraujoch, there’s a great view of the whole Grindelwald valley to be had from Kleine Scheidegg. In the shadow of mighty peaks that loom over the village from all sides, everything else seems to be tiny. Spread out at the mountains’ feet is the wide, bowl-shaped valley of undulating green ridges dotted with a few farms and traditional chalets between the holiday homes and hotels. It couldn’t be more Swiss if it tried. No wonder the Victorians were so keen to get up here, possibly inspired by the writings of John Ruskin, art critic, poet, traveller and scientist, a gentleman who had a view on everything. For instance, this was his opinion of the Swiss:
They were assumed to be either romantically virtuous, or basely mercenary, when in fact they were neither heroic nor base, but were true-hearted men, stubborn with more than any recorded stubbornness; … proud, yet not allowing their pride to prick them into unwary or unworthy quarrel; … You will find among them no subtle wit nor high enthusiasm, only an undeceivable common sense, and an obstinate rectitude. They cannot be persuaded into their duties but they feel them; they use no phrases of friendship but they do not fail you at your need.
Miss Jemima loves to quote a bit of Ruskin, but here she prefers to focus on his opinion of the natural splendour of the Alps:
“Nearly all the highest peaks stood like children set upon a table, removed, in most cases, far back from the edge of the plateau, - as if for fear of their falling; while the most majestic scenes in the Alps are produced, not so much by violation of this law, as by one of the great peaks having apparently walked to the edge of the table to look over, and thus showing itself suddenly above the valley in its full height. This is the case with the Wetterhorn and Eiger at Grindelwald.”
Those two mountains certainly dominate the Grindelwald horizon. As the 3970m star of page and screen, the Eiger needs little in the way of introduction. It was first climbed by Irishman Charles Barrington on 11 August 1858, with the invaluable help of two Grindelwald guides, Christian Almer and Peter Bohren. That in itself wasn’t anything too momentous, as the likes of the Jungfrau and Wetterhorn had both been conquered long before, although Barrington apparently went home after one summer in the Alps and never returned, the mountaineering equivalent of Harper Lee. What has made the Eiger iconic is its infamous North Face, a vast expanse of vertical black rock, which finally fell to human conquest in 1938 after witnessing countless men falling to their deaths in futile attempts to master this beast of Mother Nature. It’s no wonder that the German name for it, Nordwand, is often changed to Mordwand, or Wall of Death.
In comparison, the Wetterhorn is a gentle giant that adds a photogenic backdrop to Grindelwald although, like any of the Alps, it has seen climbing calamities. Luckily, Winston Churchill did not join their ranks when he reached the top in 1894. If he were now lying alongside William Penhall in a Swiss country churchyard, the world might be rather different. However, the Wetterhorn is famous for cable cars rather than climbers. In 1904 construction began on the world’s first aerial passenger cable car, the plan being to take visitors up to the summit in a series of four cars. This was the era in which such outlandish projects seemed achievable. The first section opened to the public on 27 July 1908, having cost 390,000 francs to build; its cabins weighed 4100kg, without the 16 passengers, and the 400m height difference was bridged in a single span. It was truly a wonder of modern technology – for about six years.
The First World War stopped construction and the project collapsed from lack of customers. In the 1930s the line was dismantled, although the disused upper station can still be seen on the side of the Wetterhorn. Even in Switzerland things don’t always go to plan. As in Leukerbad almost 100 years later, over-confidence can sometimes lead people down the wrong path, although it’s a shame to lose such an important piece of the transport history jigsaw.
Tourism put Interlaken and Grindelwald on the map. These two resorts have entertained thousands of guests over the years not for what they are – neither is that pretty in itself – but for where they are. The lakes and mountains of the Bernese Oberland have been such a magnet to visitors from a certain island nation that you could almost rechristen the region the British Oberland. It was this tourist trade that helped the region develop, providing the impetus for railway lines and grand hotels, as well as jobs for the local population. It is still the main employer today, and indirectly ensures that many other businesses thrive. As a woman from Interlaken Tourism said to me, “What future would there be for the younger generation without tourism? At least 50 per cent would leave for the cities to find an apprenticeship or a job. Without tourists, the town would not survive.”
A postcard showing the railway stations of the Jungfrau region, including the ill-fated Wetterhorn cable car on the far left
There has been a price to pay for 150 years of mass tourism, however. Both resorts have some awful eyesores that scar the scenery with their incongruous designs and unattractive construction, although it would take more than a couple of concrete blocks to ruin this landscape. Nevertheless, in being so out of keeping with their surroundings, they will hopefully act as a lesson to future planners: this is what happens when you let money talk instead of common sense. As for those train lines and cable cars that were constructed purely as tourist attractions, building them today would be almost unthinkable, in terms of both the financial and ecological cost. Green was not a Victorian colour; that century was all about man defying nature with technology, no matter what stood in the way. Few people resisted the march of progress, but there were some who did, either out of fear of the unknown (altitude sickness in mountain trains or the corrupting influence of tourists) or for love of the countryside (ruining Alpine pastures or scaring the cattle). As we will see, those who wanted to protect the natural and cultural heritage of Switzerland soon made themselves heard.
Yet compared to some other parts of the tourist world, for example the Spanish Costas, this region hasn’t fared too badly. It might have seen the birth of international tour groups, but it hasn’t yet had to endure the mass invasions and mega-hotels of the Mediterranean. While this was Europe’s first playground, that was at a time when the games were refined and respectable, when snow and scenery were enough to keep the masses happy. They have since moved on to louder, larger resorts, where Sex on the Beach is not just a cocktail, but the British have kept coming to their Swiss second home. For example, in the mid-1960s there were direct flights from London to Interlaken (with British Eagle), and in the late 1980s Brits were still the most numerous hotel guests in Interlaken, outnumbering even the Swiss. However, in 2012 Britain only managed No. 8, overtaken by the likes of India, Korea, China and Japan. The British century (and a half) in Switzerland is over; the Asian one has just begun.
The glaciers once reached so far into Grindelwald that there were fears the village would be crushed by ice
SEVEN
LAND OF THE FROZEN HURRICANES
[In Grindelwald] most of the children are beggars – occupations arising from the influx of strangers into the valley, which has exercised an injurious influence upon its morals and ancient simplicity of manners.
—Murray Handbook
> One benefit of spending your whole life in the same village is that you can remember all the changes, big and small. No need for then-and-now photos or old maps, you can simply close your eyes and picture how it used to be. In a village like Grindelwald there are undoubtedly a few people whose memories are long and strong enough to do that (it’s the kind of place that is hard for some to leave behind) and we are lucky enough to find one of them in the local museum. Christian Kaufmann is many years away from being a candidate for Switzerland’s oldest citizen, but Grindelwald was still a very different place in his childhood. From his chair behind the ticket table, he points to the far side of the room, over behind the displays of sepia photos:
This was the school and I sat at a desk in this corner every day and looked out of the window across to the glacier.
The village school has long since relocated, leaving the handsome wooden building behind the church to find a new role. And former pupil Mr Kaufmann is the perfect man to be the curator. As for the glacier, that has shrunk back up its narrow valley so that it can only be seen from certain spots in Grindelwald. Stand in the immaculate churchyard, where gravestones for fallen climbers sit among those of the villagers, and you can still see the head of the glacier and a slither of ice trailing down from it. That’s a far cry from when Miss Jemima was here; at that time the two glaciers, Upper and Lower, were within a mile of the village, and there were fears that Grindelwald would be crushed by the advancing ice. As Murray says:
Its two glaciers, which, as they descend into the very bottom of the valley, below the level of the village, and almost within a stone’s-throw of human habitations, are more easily accessible here than in other parts of Switzerland. … Between the three mountains the two glaciers issue out. They are branches of that vast ice field or ocean of ice … occupying the table-land and high valleys amidst the Bernese Alps, and, being pushed downwards by the constantly-increasing masses above, descend far below the line of perpetual snow.